Waves of Success

A passion for weather and water led New York City native Jeff Ragovin ’00 to the shores of Lake Ontario. After all, he grew up watching America’s favorite weatherman, Al Roker ’76, extol his alma mater during Today show broadcasts.

Instead of majoring in meteorology as he initially planned, Jeff opted for broadcasting and mass communication, practicing his weather forecasts and journalism skills at the college’s WTOP television station, WNYO radio station and The Oswegonian newspaper.

He was also involved in the Sheldon Leaders program and stood out to then program advisor Robin McAleese ’93 M’95 as someone who “came to college with a great deal of self-direction … and leadership traits right from the start.” Robin said Jeff knew even as a first-year student that he needed to get involved in clubs and organizations and to start making friends and building his network.

“I had such an amazing time, engaging in all of those experiences,” Jeff said. A semester abroad in London during spring semester of his junior year fueled Jeff’s desire to graduate and “get started in life.”

Little did he know then, that 12 years after graduation, Jeff would be part of one of the largest company acquisitions in New York tech scene history—selling the social media marketing platform, Buddy Media—a company he co-founded, to Salesforce for just under $800 million in 2012.

Catching the dot-com wave

Jeff’s first job out of college landed him back in New York City, not at a news station but at a technical consulting and recruiting company.

“If I wanted to do weather on TV, I knew I’d have to start in a small market and work my way up into a mid-market to eventually, if I was lucky, make my way back to New York,” he said. “I couldn’t wait that long to return to New York. It was the late 90s and the Internet was booming. All these dot-com companies were raising massive amounts of money with huge valuations—some of them going public. To me, I was like, ‘this is a wave I’ve gotta ride,’ you know?”

And he did—placing product managers, developers and database managers at companies with huge trajectories. Then the 9/11 attacks happened.

College friend Andy Niver ’00, who was roommates with Jeff during their semester in London, was working around the corner from the Twin Towers on 9/11, and after the attacks, he walked miles covered in soot to reach Jeff’s apartment door.

“I spent the rest of the day with him, because that was the place that I knew and the friend that I had,” Andy said. “Later that evening, the subways started running again and I went home. But we actually met the next day, went down to Union Square and reflected on what happened and took it all in like everybody else. We spent a fair bit of time together after that because we were close friends working through this horrible event. He’s been a great friend.”

From his workplace, Jeff saw the planes hit the towers; he saw the buildings burning the next day and still smoldering 30 days later. The event shook him to the core, and he realized quickly that he couldn’t do as his boss asked. He couldn’t call people who had lost so much and try to find replacements for their deceased coworkers only days after the incident.

For Jeff, that moment helped him bring into focus a value that has been defining for his career. “I did what I believed was morally correct, even though I knew I would lose my job as a young college grad with rent to pay,” he said. “But morally I feel like I stood up for what was right to me and that was the most important decision I could have ever made. It was a turning point.”

Riding the email marketing wave

Jeff didn’t have to wait long before he was in a new job, making twice his previous salary.

“I knew nothing about marketing, let alone email marketing,” he said. “For me, the job laid the foundation of what was going to be the next five years of my career.”

The company had been founded in the Silicon Valley and expanded into NYC, and Jeff learned a lot about web-based systems, corporate business and sales. He was recruited away by a competitor who offered him three times what he was making, and he would have more responsibilities and be stretched professionally.

He quickly realized it wasn’t the right move for him or his career, as the company didn’t seem ready for its planned expansion and he worried that the company would fail. But he did develop great sales experience and senior management skills.

“That was the winning ticket for me,” he said. “I realized sales was about creating great relationships—building rapport. You’re not just getting them to buy what you’re selling, but they get to buy into you.”

Breaking waves

Combining his newly acquired knowledge of marketing and sales with his lifelong passion for weather, Jeff applied for a senior director position for weather.com. Around the same time, he launched a blog called Jeff’s Weather, which featured an avatar version of himself that delivered the weather report in outfits matched to the daily forecast.

After eight rounds of interviews for the weather.com job, he learned that the company opted for someone with 20 years of broadcast experience.

“I was devastated,” he said. “I was already planning my future—at the Weather Channel where I was going to be able to apply everything I learned post-college to my passion, and it didn’t happen. What was I going to do now?”

Surfing the search engine wave

Timing is everything.

Through a mutual friend, Jeff met the head of the search engine marketing firm, Acronym Media, at a social gathering. He interviewed and joined the company, which is located on the 55th floor of the Empire State Building and continues to be a leading search engine optimization and digital marketing firm.

At the time, search engine marketing involved optimizing websites by using keywords that would propel them to the top of a search return. He worked with big companies like Four Seasons hotels and Sirius XM Satellite Radio on improving their search engine marketing and online advertising.

“I said, ‘OK, now I’m going to ride this wave,’ and I had an amazing experience,” Jeff said. “I got to work with some really great clients, and I still maintain relationships with those folks today.”

After 3½ years or so, Facebook announced that it was going public. People would no longer need a dot-edu address to create an account, and Jeff realized the possibilities that opened up for marketers. He could get out ahead of this next wave, so he’d be in a great position to ride it.

“Search engine marketing is somewhat passive because people have to actually put in what they’re looking for,” he said. “But what if you’re on Facebook—this is what my brain was thinking—and you say on your Facebook page that you enjoy fishing or TV or sailing or reading books; what if now, an ad could be targeted to you without you searching for anything?”

Cresting the social media wave

It was May 2007, and Jeff was wracking his brain trying to figure out how to move into the social media marketing wave while the rest of the world was still focused on search engine marketing.

Then he met Mike Lazerow.

“We were looking for someone to join Buddy Media and to lead sales,” Mike said. “He’d been in search and email marketing and basically wanted to get into social marketing—which is what we were doing. And we met at a Starbucks on Park Avenue South. From the first time we got together, we just really hit it off. He’s a really great guy—high energy and really knowledgeable, and it was like an immediate connection.”

But Jeff had yet to meet Mike’s business partner and wife, Kass Lazerow. Their first meeting was memorable.

Kass was sitting on the floor next to a pram that held their newborn baby—their third child—and she was drilling parts to build desks for the expanding company in between nursing. As chief operating officer of Buddy Media, she had hired and fired many salespeople who didn’t deliver, so she said she didn’t hold salespeople in that high regard.

“I was definitely standoffish and told him I didn’t have time to do an interview,” she said. The conversation unfolded something like:

KASS: I honestly don’t have much time today for an interview as you can see. So, what makes you different from all other salespeople?

JEFF: I close deals and make clients want to work with me.

KASS: Yay, well I have heard it all before. And, have hired and fired thousands of salespeople.

JEFF: It’s the truth. So, why don’t you tell me something about yourself. One thing that you love.

KASS: The weather.

JEFF: Oh OK, interesting. Well, you should hire me, and I will prove you

wrong. I guarantee you that I’ll come in with a signed contract the first day of work.

KASS: Sure, buddy, great. There’s just no way, but whatever. Good luck.

Following the exchange, Jeff gave his two-week notice at Acronym and began sending daily updates from his weatherman avatar to Kass. She adored the weather reports but they didn’t cause her to change her mind about him, or other salespeople, for that matter, she said. But on his first day at Buddy Media, Jeff came in with a signed contract from a new client and dropped it on her desk.

“My thought was there was just no way that Jeff was going to work. We needed to get somebody very high up in sales,” she said. “What I didn’t know is that we were literally making a connection to one of the best salespeople ever. And from that moment on, the three of us have been best friends.”

Together, they grew the company into the world’s leading social media marketing platform that enabled big brands such as Ford, Hewlett Packard and L’Oréal to connect with more than a billion customers on Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and other social platforms.

During its development, the company had to pivo

t several times but managed to maintain service to their clients, and five years after its founding, Buddy Media sold to Salesforce—the largest cloud computing company at the time—for just under $800 million.

“When we finally made that decision to exit, Salesforce was the best possible suitor,” Jeff said. After the acquisition they stayed with Salesforce for three years to help with the transition and to learn from being part of a large publicly traded company.

Positioning for the P2P marketing wave

Jeff left Salesforce to enjoy life after the acquisition. An avid angler, he spent three weeks or so fishing on his boat off the Hamptons on Long Island. He searched for a new idea to pursue—a bed and breakfast, a beverage company, a food company, a consulting agency—all ideas he considered.

He ended up launching Ragovin Ventures and began investing in and advising other entrepreneurs. One of those companies was Social Native, a marketplace of a quarter-million people across the globe who can receive a text at any moment asking them to create a photo or video for brands. With the shift of eyeballs from production quality

content to user generated (e.g. Facebook being the largest publisher in the world, that doesn’t make content), brands are now reimagining how they create branded content.

For example, Social Native might connect with their content creators (everyday people) and ask them to submit a photo for Coca-Cola that ties into National Taco Day. In turn, the brand earns a wide array of branded content that can then be used across various advertising channels—keeping their brand content fresh, relatable and, most importantly, authentic.

“In the early days of YouTube, it was crazy to think brands would place meaningful dollars behind a user-generated video, let alone create unique video content specific to the channel,” said David Shadpour, founder and chief executive officer of Social Native. “But over time, education and adoption, almost every TV commerc

ial today comes with a complementary YouTube takeover. Our business is very similar right now—If you walk into a big brand to meet with a senior-level executive and say, ‘kids with iPhones can create great quality content,’ you would almost seem silly.”

But Jeff was an early believer in the idea.

“It’s a super cool idea—a technology platform that connects the world of consumers with brands to create content,” he said. Jeff introduced his clients from his past roles to this new way of marketing, and helped Social Native acquire more business.

With each success for Social Native, Jeff introduced David to a new potential client. “Over time, Jeff and I started spending so much time together that I asked him to join the company full time, and the rest is history.”

Today, Jeff serves as chief growth officer and is an invest

or in Social Native.

“One of my big goals is trying to create a culture where people are excited and happy to come into work,” Jeff said.

While David acknowledges that his business couldn’t exist without the evolution of hardware technology like the iPhone that fits in a pocket and can create amazing photos and videos, he said that successful businesses are about the people.

“Anyone who has been an entrepreneur understands how truly terrible the grind is—living on an airplane, moving from city to city each week, constantly dealing with challenging situations,” David said. “And here’s Jeff who has already lived that. He built a massive business and had an exit. To know the pain and struggle and to come back to it, that’s really just an example of how awesome Jeff is. He’s the guy who loves what he does. He’s the guy who everyone loves—billionaires to interns.”

Sharing a Friendly Wave

Jeff and Husband, Kurt Giehl

Everyone who knows Jeff, knows Jeff. Friends describe him as genuine, kind, personable, warm, generous, dynamic, passionate. He has been known to take the junior-level employee

s of his company out for a day of fishing on the sea, and once he befriended everyone who served on grand jury duty with him—even inviting them back to his house for dinner.

Thankfully, his husband of seven years, Kurt Giehl, enjoys an active social life as well.

“Jeff has an incredible passion for life,” said Kurt, who attended SUNY Oswego for two years in 1985-86 before transferring to Drexel University in Philadelphia. “When Jeff is passionate about something, he is incredibly influential and can sell just about anything. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in his passion when he’s like that. When he’s working, he doesn’t see his work relationships as work relationships. He sees them simply as relationsh

ips. And relationships that will last forever.”

In fact, many business associates are close friends to Jeff and Kurt. Kass

Jeff, godson Cole Lazerow and Michael in the Hamptons in 2013

and Mike Lazerow officiated at Jeff and Kurt’s wedding. Jeff is godfather to the Lazerow’s middle child, and the two couples consider each other like family.

“I’m not surprised at Jeff’s success,” said college friend Andy Niver. “He’s always been all-in on everything he does—weather, fishing, career, friendships. I’m glad to see that his great success has not changed him.” l —Margaret Spillett

Future Predictions:

Everything is about social selling. Everyone has the ability to influence purchase decisions, so the future of selling is through people. Imagine a world where brands are vying for consumers’ attention, and we as consumers can actually make money from the products we endorse. I’m not talking about the Kim Kardashian-kind of endorsements. I’m talking about a world of true, genuine transparency where you’re recommending products and services to your family because you trust those products. And you get paid.

We will have more market disruptors—products or services that change the way we currently do things. For example, subscription-based services—meals delivered to your door, toothbrushes or hair dye delivered monthly. Or what if you didn’t have to buy a washing machine anymore because Tide laundry detergent would buy it for you, but the machine would only run using that soap. You’d be a customer for life.

Securing Our Digitally Connected World

For the past 20 years, Dane Coyer ’80 has lived in the future.

“In the startup world, I have to be thinking about what’s going to happen next. What technology do we need, what new problems will need to be solved, what new problems will be created by new technology? I find it really fascinating and fun to live in the future like that.”

And the biggest challenge of today, he said, is cybersecurity.

He joined Netherlands-based Eclectic IQ to help large organizations like governments, financial services companies and healthcare systems protect themselves from cyberattacks and nefarious online behaviors. He recently launched the North American subsidiary for the company and now serves as general manager-North America.

“These organizations are awash in data but are starving for intelligence,” he said. His company provides IT staff with software that allows organizations to contextualize the information and make sense of it.

“Our product looks for relationships between pieces of information to identify patterns or trends in the things that are happening,” he said. “It’s like putting more and more pieces into a jigsaw puzzle and all of a sudden you have a picture.”

As the “Internet of things” takes a stronger hold, more people and more systems will be at risk of being attacked online.

“The Internet of things means that everything is going to have a networking and processing capability,” he said. “Your phone, a drone, your thermostat in your home and even the food growing in a farmer’s field—thanks to sensor technology—are part of the Internet of things. If they’re part of the Internet, they’re vulnerable to attack.”

Despite the risk, Dane said he gets frustrated by people who lament such progress.

“I love disruption,” he said. “[Industrial Arts Professor] John Belt used to say, ‘Jump up and down, stick a finger in your eye. If you feel comfortable, you feel nothing.’ It was his way of talking about disruption. Has anything ever advanced society by just being comfortable?”

The Oswego native said although he doesn’t use much of his industrial arts coursework in his work today, his education forced him to take abstract, complicated concepts and boil them down into an idea that he could explain to a junior high student.

“That skill has served me very well,” said Dane, who was a vice president of IBM before pursuing a career with startups, including as chief executive officer of SpaceCurve and president and chief executive officer of Wavestate Inc. “I’ve reinvented myself several times throughout my 40 years of working, but the ability to take a technical concept and communicate it effectively has been invaluable throughout my career.”

—Margaret Spillett

Hot Topics Now and in the Future:

• Artificial Intelligence/Automation: There are several schools of thought about whether this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing. But it is going to happen, and it is going to displace tons of workers who will need to get new jobs. There’s going to be social disruption, and what will that mean?

• Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality: People will have difficulty determining what’s real. Check out deepfake. With technology now, you can modify a video clip or photo, or even create a whole new human image that actually looks like someone—say a president or a famous athlete. It’s completely fake, but looks legitimate. What will that mean to copyright and privacy issues?

• Autonomous Vehicles: This is only a few years away—cars and drones. Drones will be able to drop off an online purchase at your front step, or apply pesticide or water a single plant in a farmer’s field instead of a crop-duster spraying an entire field that may or may not need it.

• Blockchain Technologies/Cryptocurrencies: These will be necessary to authenticate images and transactions.

• Cybersecurity: As more things become connected to the Internet, we are more vulnerable to cyberattacks. This is the biggest problem we face today.

—Dane Coyer ’80

Future Predictions:

“Everyone thinks that technology has accelerated a lot recently, but I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. I think things are going to accelerate so much faster than we expect—in a nonlinear fashion. The rate of change is going to scare some people.”

—Dane Coyer ’80

Staying One Step Ahead in Electronic Warfare

Margaret McCormick M’17 works to protect military bases and soldiers from those who use technology as a weapon.

“It’s a pretty powerful feeling knowing that the work you’re doing is helping to save lives. Our team is really motivated by the mission. It means something to them. I continue to be impressed every day by the dedication and devotion of our team to solving the most challenging problems that face the warfighter.”

Margaret is the director for the electronic warfare portion of the counter-unmanned aircraft system programs at Central New York research and development firm, SRC Inc.

With its corporate headquarters in Cicero, N.Y., SRC has honed a reputation for being at the cutting edge of electronic warfare, air surveillance and target detection. Just recently, the U.S. Air Force awarded SRC a $57.5 million contract to provide systems that detect, identify and defeat enemy drones.

“Counter systems have always battled to stay one step ahead,” Margaret said. “As methods for defeating different technologies are introduced, the enemy is working to exploit the next new technology. We need to anticipate what is coming next and focus efforts on developing the counter to it. It’s a continuous cycle.”

Margaret has worked for SRC for 25 years and earned an MBA in 2017 through a SUNY Oswego partnership with SRC. She joined the electronic warfare group as a software engineer doing development for some of its early counter systems, which date back to providing Counter Improvised Electronic Devices (CIED) in the early 2000s.

“The technology used in CIED was a natural fit for what is required in countering unmanned systems so our CIED systems were modified for this mission,” Margaret said. “The concentration early on has been on drones, but the ability to operate equipment remotely or autonomously has moved quickly to other platforms (ground based and maritime applications), and as an organization we have resources that are devoted to those technologies as well.”

As director, Margaret is responsible for overseeing product development, managing program execution and developing new technologies and business. Some of the work being done at SRC includes incorporating machine learning and artificial intelligence into SRC’s systems. The major focus in this area is the training of software to analyze electrical signals that are received by the system to aid in identifying the type of device being operated.

“It’s just the beginning of where we will go with these systems regarding machine learning,” Margaret said.

Margaret holds bachelor’s degrees in business management and marketing from Ithaca College, and in computer information science systems from Columbia College. And while she is a self-proclaimed tech junkie—“access to information at your fingertips whenever you need it is amazing”—she still finds time to disconnect.

“My husband and I enjoy spending time in the summer in the Thousand Islands, boating and golfing. In the winter time we like to ski at various mountains across New York,” the Franklinville, N.Y., native said. “It’s important to stay active.”

—Eileen Moran

Future Predictions:

“I think we’re going to see more machine learning in both unmanned aerial vehicles and counter systems. This will be game changing as each side becomes more intelligent. Instead of focusing all of our efforts on understanding how to defeat a particular technology, we need to be working on making our systems smarter so they can eventually make decisions for defeat autonomously. ”

Design Matters

Jeff Hoefer ’80 grew up in Binghamton, N.Y., and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from SUNY Oswego. After graduation, his interests led him to pursue employment in California as a model maker, which launched a career spanning 38 years in Silicon Valley.

As the computer made its way into everyday tasks, his occupation focused on computer-aided design (CAD). Beginning with Atari Inc. and Lunar Design for 19 years, he then joined the Apple Industrial Design team in 2005, spending 10 years creating products from the first iPhone to the iWatch, now known as Apple Watch.

Oral B Crossaction Toothbrush—Jeff was intimately involved in all parts of the product cycle for this toothbrush, including CAD, design, animation for commercial and marketing assets.

Jeff joined Google four years ago, and presently heads up the Digital Imaging Group for Brand Marketing and Hardware in Mountain View, Calif. Throughout his profession he has collaborated on over 1,500 projects in product design, movies and the gaming industry.

His experiences over these years have taught him the high value and power of visualization, starting at the early stages of product development, and how to leverage those assets through to packaging and marketing of products, he said. A model of the SUNY Oswego campus that Jeff built in 1979 still adorns one of the walls of Hewitt Union, giving credence, he said, to a valuable start on his future.

He returned to campus last May to deliver the Commencement address at the School of Education and School of Communication, Media and the Arts ceremony.

“Personality and communication are the skills that get you hired,” he told graduates. “Be a great listener. Be humble … Be kind. Just say hello and smile. Small gestures like this can lead to amazing opportunities. Just be kind. It’s so simple. Being kind and caring about people also make you a natural leader.”

He also advised graduates to be patient as life’s path is filled with many twists and turns.

In Loudoun County, Va., a tiny village has been built using engineering software and a 3D printer.

The village’s roads and bridges have been tested for vehicle safety using coded robotics—although the transportation engineers who conducted the testing are still years away from being old enough to legally drive.

That’s because the architects, engineers and manufacturers of this replica community are only in the fourth grade.

“We have changed the path of learning here,” said The Washington Post’s 2018 Principal of the Year Paul Pack ’01, principal of the STEM immersion school, Liberty Elementary. “Unlike traditional learning, consumption of information is not encouraged. Instead, students work together using technology to redefine learning experiences.”

In today’s classroom, technology is about being relevant, cutting edge, job-ready and progressively competitive.

And, it’s also just plain cool.

From 3D printers to goggles that allow students to amble through the outback of Australia as a sensory experience, technology-heavy classrooms have no shortage of students willing to immerse themselves in the fast-paced world of applied science. And, educators have to work hard to keep up.

SUNY Oswego’s technology-driven educators are doing exactly that. Paul started his career in the district more than 15 years ago; he was at the helm of Liberty’s transition to a more STEM-friendly school. Paul converted Liberty’s traditional computer lab into a SMART Lab that encourages students to work collaboratively with new technology.

“Seeing it play out in the classroom elevated even my expectations,” Paul said. “Now, these types of projects are commonplace at Liberty. It was so eye-opening.”

Paul Pack ’01

Part of an E-volution

John Sebalos ’05

John Sebalos ’05, director of technology for Pelham (N.Y.) Public Schools, has been a tech leader in downstate New York school districts for more than 12 years, working both with students and in staff development. In 2009, he was part of a grant program that received national attention on CNN for doing the unthinkable: 100 fifth graders were given smartphones to use in the classroom, at a time when many schools were confiscating and banning them.

“I was able to see how easy it was for them to collaborate,” said John, who said that today’s young students are not necessarily tech savvy—but they are usually “tech comfy”—fearless when it comes to using the newest gadgets and software. Where educators can be most effective, he said, is teaching them to use technology in a productive and meaningful way.

“We can be instrumental in harnessing their skills to be contributors to society, not just consumers of content,” John said. It is, in fact, the trend; young people are becoming collaborative content creators through technological advances, and they can both connect and troubleshoot on a global level, he said.

For John, who credits his high level of involvement in Greek life at SUNY Oswego (Sigma Alpha Epsilon) for developing his soft skills and calls his student-teaching in Red Creek, N.Y., a highlight of his time at Oswego, applying a passion for technology yields results: college-ready and work-ready students.

“I grew up analog but we were exposed to digital, and everyone just knew it was going to be huge—and huge in schools,” he said. “Digital technology allowed me the opportunity to apply what I love in the classroom.”

Mark Quintana ’94 was an intern on the floor of the New York State Stock Exchange when he realized his true calling: education and technology.

The Long Island native who graduated with an economics degree from Oswego decided to change direction and head to Florida, where he was an educator and ultimately earned a doctoral degree in child and youth studies. His career trajectory placed him in one of the largest public school districts in the nation—Broward County—where he worked for years to integrate technology in the classroom.

“Even as a budding administrator I tended toward the techie side,” Mark said. In 2014, he landed in a position that saw him serving the hardware and software needs of school districts on a national level as a senior education consultant for Promethean.

The classroom spaces that Mark helps districts design and build include equipment that is unrecognizable to those educated in the not-so-distant chalk-dusty eraser past: interactive and high-definition panels, whiteboards and trips to museums around the world via virtual reality, to name just a few updates in recent years.

“School districts know they need to offer state-of-the-art equipment for college and career readiness,” he said. The pressure to be continually progressive is made more difficult by the speed with which technology is outdated, and the cost to keep it current.

It has forced districts to be creative to keep pace.

“The world will move forward, and we can’t fall behind,” he said. “It’s really a national issue for us.”

Alexis Williams ’18

And those who are just entering the field are expected to hit the ground running. Districts compete hard for the newest talent. Alexis Williams ’18 was hired to be the technology teacher for the sizeable Manhasset School District in Nassau County, N.Y., before she’d even graduated in May 2018.

Alexis is teaching Robotics & Engineering as well as Design & Modeling for the district; she received five school district job offers before graduation and still receives phone calls for interviews from across the state.

“When they [school districts] hear you have a degree from SUNY Oswego, the opportunities become limitless because of its long, rich history in technology education,” said Alexis, who was active in VEX robotic training (see inset) during her time on campus. ”I plan to light a fire of curiosity within my students and watch it spread like wildfire, just as my professors at SUNY Oswego have done for me.” —Eileen Moran

“I plan to light a fire
of curiosity within my students and watch it spread like wildfire, just as my
professors at SUNY Oswego have done for me.”

–Alexis Williams ’18

Jumping Off the Page into the Minds of Children

When students at Oswego’s Fitzhugh Elementary School became frustrated with the instruction booklets provided with robot-making kits, two alumnae made those instructions jump right off the page—a project that ultimately earned them international recognition.

Carly Karas ’12 M’14 (left) and Patricia Tanner Terrance M’14 (right) were in the human-computer interaction master’s program, working with young students on the topic of robotics using Lego Mindstorm Robots. Students learned the functions of a robot and were given the experience of building one on their own.

And that’s when the trouble started.

The 2D-drawings in the instruction manuals—think IKEA instructions—weren’t informative enough for the students to use.

“Manuals and diagrams can be really hard to translate into the real world for children,” Carly said. “The manuals didn’t include any text or much support besides single, static diagrams of how the robot should look at each step, and it requires a lot of spatial reasoning. We knew that in order to give these kids the best information on how these pieces are supposed to fit together, we had to give them dynamic tools.”

So the alumnae used HP Reveal software to build augmented reality (AR) versions of the instructions. The result: the robots appeared to rise from the instruction page itself into a 3D-representation of the mechanics of putting them together, complete with voiceover instructions provided by the alumnae. Through augmented reality and an iPad, students were able to view the robot being pieced together from all angles and listen to guidance. The build success rate was much higher. In fact, the team’s work is still used by young students in the school today.

“It is interesting to see how far AR has grown since working on this project,” Patricia said. “Technology and gaming have always had a tight bond. I am particularly proud, however, that Carly and I were able to make a case that this technology has a place in education, as well.”

Carly traveled to Australia with Professor Damian Schofield to present their project at an international conference, and their work was subsequently published in the Journal of Information Technology Education: Innovations in Practice. Patricia didn’t attend the Australian conference for a good reason: She was working on a similar project in Brazil at the time.

Today, Patricia is a digital research consultant at Wells Fargo in Charlotte, N.C., and Carly is a user experience strategist and researcher for design studio P’unk Ave in Philadelphia, Pa. l —Eileen Moran

SUNY Oswego students participated in a Girls Who Code Vietnam workshop at Enouvo Space with a group of women interested in teaching girls how to do computer programming.

International Partnerships, Women Empowering Women In HCI Program

SUNY Oswego student Tara O’Grady ’16M’19 (standing) helped other women programmers work through issues with their Python code while Annie Reynolds ’18 M’19 (left) manned the laptop for a presentation.

When a research group at Duy Tan University needed help designing new interfaces for medical virtual reality software, SUNY Oswego alumni and master’s degree students hopped a plane to Vietnam.

Among the seven students were Annie Reynolds ’18 M’19 and Tara O’Grady ’16 M’19, who spent over two months in Vietnam in summer 2018, working on the mobile and desktop interfaces for virtual reality, mixed reality and augmented reality software geared toward students trying to learn anatomy and physiology.

“We would wake up at our apartment and ride our motorbikes across the Dragon Bridge to the university,” Annie said. “We worked exclusively in Axure [software] for prototyping, creating the designs and interactions. We would use a whiteboard to discuss problems with functionality and design, and create new solutions.”

A visual of the interface for medical virtual reality software, which SUNY Oswego students helped develop.

The international experience was coordinated by Dr. Damian Schofield, who teaches in the computer science department and is the director of SUNY Oswego’s human-computer interaction programs, in partnership with former SUNY Oswego Professor Jolanda Tromp, who is now based at the Vietnam university. According to Damian, it’s just one of many opportunities for students to take their education to a global, hands-on level. And for Annie and Tara, it was an opportunity to take another passion abroad.

Annie and Tara are the Oswego founders of a program called Girls Who Code, an extension of a national initiative with a single goal: to close the gender gap in technology. Beginning in 2017, the pair has welcomed as many as 25 local high school girls to the SUNY Oswego campus on Sunday afternoons for lessons and fellowship surrounding coding, which is the foundation of computer programming to create computer software, apps and websites.

So when they traveled to Vietnam, Annie and Tara decided to run workshops so that a Girls Who Code group can be formed there, too.

SUNY Oswego students (from left) Tara O’Grady ’16 M’19, Annie Reynolds ’18 M’19, Kristen Ray ’18, Zhushun “Tim” Cai M’18 and Noelle LeRoy ’17 donned their virtual reality glasses to see a new version of the world around them.

“We worked with women on how to approach the fear of failure and instill confidence in young girls, exposed them to famous women in STEM fields to provide representation and gave them the tools to create their own clubs to teach young girls in Vietnam how to program,” Annie said.

Girls Who Code is a program that yields results that benefit all of the science fields, Damian said.

“The evidence is overwhelming,” Damian said. “The percentage of women who go into the science fields following their involvement in a club like Girls Who Code is 10 times the national average.”

And according to Annie, who previously served as the president of the SUNY Oswego Women in Computing Club, the impact can also be much more personal.

In Vietnam, the students met a woman through their Girls Who Code workshops who touched them deeply. The woman used a wooden prosthetic leg to walk; it was among other injuries that had happened as a result of exposure to Agent Orange.

“She grew up in a very poor family and had to overcome a lot of obstacles in her life,” Annie said. “She had learned how to program and other basic life skills. She was so excited to learn from our experiences. It was an honor to meet her. I cannot wait to have more women like her serve as representatives in tech fields for younger generations.”

And the younger generations are stepping up to the challenge, Tara said. One of the teen girls in the Oswego club took on a very ambitious project: A GoPiGo robot car. Word of the project spread in the computer science department, and college students and faculty popped in on a Sunday club meeting to help her accomplish her goal.

“It really was impressive. She was programming the same robots that software engineer majors were working with,” Tara said.

Taking in the wonders of the country—including a rafting trip in the Red River Delta—were part of the experience for SUNY Oswego students.

Tara, who was asked by Annie to help create the Girls Who Code club after Annie attended a conference, said the gender gap is glaringly obvious; most programming classes on campus have very few women.

“I only realized my love for tech when I came to college and often wish I had the exposure when I was younger,” Tara said. “So being able to do this for young girls in the community is amazing.”

Technology is universal, so to exclude women from the conversation is to lose half of the world’s experiences, Annie said.

“It’s a slow process to get women into tech fields because you’re undoing years of doubts and stereotypes,” she said. “Through STEM programs that reach a wide audience of all types of young girls, I am more confident that we can have more women in tech fields.”

Sharing that confidence on an international level—including Vietnam—has its perks.

“We were living by the beautiful beaches with mountains in the background, riding through small towns nestled in thick green jungles, sitting on our rooftop deck, drinking world-renowned coffee, and enjoying the kindness and warmth of the people,” Annie said. l

—Eileen Moran

EXCLUSIVE:

Mark Quintana is senior director of strategic partnerships for AdvancED, which provides continuous improvement services to schools and school districts domestically and internationally.

5 Ways to Integrate Technology into the Classroom (provided by Mark Quintana):

1. As supported by the University of South Florida’s Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) and AdvancED’s Effective Learning Environment Observation Tool (eleot), use technology programs that flip the classroom around where the students are the center of the classroom and develop their own learning with their choice of technology programs and content. The teacher’s role evolves into one of a facilitator, where they are not the content expert nor the ‘sage on the stage’. The planning process becomes ever more important as teachers guide students to create their own knowledge, and provide options of choice for content while also remaining in alignment with academic standards.

2. Embrace students collaborating with and around technology. There does not need to be 1:1 student to technology devices for technology to be used in the classroom. A small group of students can collaborate around a device. In this manner instruction with technology is also supporting social skill development and cooperative learning experiences.

3. Have technology centers in the classroom. This is most common at the elementary level but does not have to be. There is no reason that rotations around technology can not occur at the middle and high school levels, especially when there is not a 1:1 ratio of student to device.

4. Accept that student cell phones can support teaching and learning. This is a manner that can help bridge the divide for those without regular access to tablets, laptops or computers. School and district policies that do not support bring your own device (BYOD) initiatives are missing a great opportunity to bring teaching and learning processes directly to meet students where they are very naturally engaged and spend a lot of time voluntarily.

5. Model the use of technology for students and parents. Show the students that you, too, are using technology in your work for the times where you are providing instruction. There are programs where content can be sent to student devices and/or formative assessment questions can be asked of students with devices (even if the devices are shared). Do the same thing when presenting information to parents. It will give them a taste of what their children are experiencing during the school day. In both cases, an important result will be increased engagement. As it relates to students, this is an important component to increasing student achievement.

Olu is an alligator who goes on adventures with his friends,
and together they send a 3-dimensional message of love and tolerance.

Olu and Friends is the brainchild of Okiemute “Okie” Inweh ’06 and Sean Brissett, co-founders and partners at Inway Studios, a content development studio with offices in New York City, Atlanta and Miami. Okie moved to New York City from Nigeria as a child and headed to art school in Miami, Fla., following his time in Oswego. Today, he independently produces 3D animated shows for children for television and online delivery—and operates 3D animation summer camps sponsored by the Miami Heat professional basketball team at Miami-Dade College in Florida and the city of North Miami Beach.

“The 3D animation camps show children the beginning stages of how favorite video games and animated movies are created,” said Okie, who graduated from Oswego with a bachelor’s in studio art. “Students learn the ins and outs of creative development from concept to execution.”

Okie mostly uses Autodesk Maya in his own work, but he’s also rooted in the traditional: sculpting and painting by hand. Starting out as a traditional artist laid the groundwork for the introduction of technology to his artistic vision, said Okie, who decided to attend Oswego after a visit to Tyler Hall, where he saw art on display.

“It’s euphoric,” Okie said. “Working with digital software has enabled me to create what I couldn’t with my hands, and I can take it to the next level artistically, giving me the freedom to create whatever my imagination can fathom.”

One of those projects is the 3D animated series for kids called Olu and Friends, inspired by the reptile common to Okie’s new hometown. The pilot is set to release in 2019. The project merges his artistic vision with a strong anti-bullying message for children.

“The future of technology in art is everything and everywhere,” said Okie.

ECG Productions held a contest for an Atlanta-area band to win a professional music video. See Jenn’s color grading to the winner’s film noir at www.ecgprod.com. >>“I was given a lot of freedom with this one, and it was really great to just have fun and do some weird stuff.”

In Full Color: Jenn Lee ’12

Color. It can be the ingredient that changes the drab and boring into the brilliant and extraordinary. For Jenn Lee ’12, it’s where art and technology merge to tell a vibrant story.

Jenn is a colorist for ECG Productions in Atlanta, where she uses technology to colorfully enhance digital film. From music videos to commercials for such clients as Mercedes and Delta, Jenn artfully applies the hues that make a visual become vivid.

Jenn landed in the niche field of digital colorists after former SUNY Oswego Associate Professor of Broadcast Production Jane Winslow encouraged her to learn some of the tools of this highly technical trade. Today, Jenn uses software called Davinci Resolve together with a specialized control surface called Tangent Element Control Surface.

“My desk looks a little like a spaceship,” Jenn said of the intricate console panels of buttons, knobs, balls and wheels that serve as the artist’s tools.

Jenn, who was accepted as a member of the Colorist Society International in 2018, has a goal of taking scenes and building “subtle emphasis” on certain aspects: shadows on skin, the liquid in a glass, a kerchief lying on the pavement—anything that enhances the story.

“I try to guide the viewer through the scene and show them what to focus on, hopefully without them noticing what I’m doing,” Jenn said. “I’m a huge fan of really dramatic skies or big clouds that give you that feeling of being small, or that you are in some sort of magical world.”

What are Jenn’s favorite colors?

“I really like deep teals, blues and grey.”

—Eileen Moran

EXCLUSIVE CONTENT:

Jenn has never colorized a famous Oswego sunset, but her appreciation for photography was sharpened at her alma mater.

“I take a lot of inspiration from my time at Oswego, and its beautiful sunsets,” she said. “I really loved wandering around the Rice Creek Field Station trails alone with a camera in the fall and winter when it was quiet, and still. Being in the darkroom was probably almost as fun as taking the pictures, it’s probably where I started getting into manipulating images. Without spending so much time developing real film, I don’t think I would have had the hard-won understanding of how cameras actually worked.”

Jenn hopes that as technology becomes exponentially more complex, colorists gain more recognition.

“It would be really nice not to be mistaken for a hair colorist every time someone asks what I do,” she said. “Currently, there is not an academy award for colorists. I’d like for colorists to one day be counted among those that have a significant technical contribution to a film and can get recognition for that.

“Right now, not many people who work in Film or TV know that my job even exists. It’s not uncommon for me to be at a film mixer or industry party and meet people who don’t know what a colorist is. The Colorist Society International is doing a lot to increase visibility for colorists, which is great.”

An ECG Productions team that included Jenn went to work with Atlanta, Ga.,-based band The Hearsay to craft an awesome music video.

“It was really cool because with it being a film noir we talked about the color grade very early in production. I was given a lot of freedom with this one and it was really great to just have fun and do some weird stuff.” Check it out here: www.ecgprod.com/the-hearsay-warning-signs/

This edition of
OSWEGO Alumni Magazine features cover art by international student and master’s degree candidate, Asli Kinsizer M’19. With its rich palette and intricate designs, the cover reflects both SUNY Oswego students and alumni, Asli shared.

“Portrayed on the top layer is a hard-working, goal-setting silhouette. The background is a world formed by coding. When you start your college education, you dream of completing your classes with success and finding a job where you can advance more in your field. I believe that students here at SUNY Oswego are different, unique and work hard to achieve goals. There are many students from many different countries, and one of them is me. If you want to succeed further in your career after your graduation, you have to keep up with the current time and all that it provides to you with technology.” – Asli Kinsizer

Asli joined the SUNY Oswego community by chance: She traveled to Oswego in 2015 as part of the international Genius Olympiad, coordinated by Dr. Fehmi Damkaci of the Chemistry Department. A native of Turkey, she brought her Turkish high school students with her to compete in the annual project fair that draws hundreds of participants from more than 50 countries each year to compete in science, art, creative writing and architectural design.

“I fell in love with the campus, the environment and the art department here in Oswego and decided to continue and advance in my career, and with that, my family moved from Turkey to Oswego. In Turkey, I was an AP Studio Art and an Art Portfolio teacher at a private high school. I have been teaching for more than 20 years. Along with teaching, I completed my first master’s degree in graphic design in Turkey.” – Asli Kinsizer

Before arriving at SUNY Oswego, Asli only worked in traditional methods as an artist. It was at Oswego that she introduced Adobe Programs to her toolset, as well as screen printing.

“I love to use screen printing to turn my digital works into traditional prints. At the end of the day, I rely on technology to share my artwork with peers and others or even create my online portfolio for exhibitions.” – Asli Kinsizer

Asli, who works as a graduate assistant in the Oswego art department, enjoys the cyclical nature of art and design, including creating new versions of old classics.

“Everything’s built like a cycle, especially in advertising. It seems to many young artists that art strays away from the traditional, then it returns even better than before. Something that I have noticed is how brands modify their advertisement to create similarities to prior ones. The ‘rainbow or the colorful’ version of the early Apple logo returned, or the classic Adidas Stan Smith shoes came back and gave the ‘tbt-vibe’ to the current time we live in.” – Asli Kinsizer

—Eileen Moran

Inner Voices: Jon Lipow ’94

What do a friendly dinosaur, a European ambulance and an arrogant villian have in common?

The voice of Jon Lipow ’94.

Jon is a voice actor for dozens of commercial projects requiring the sounds that make story characters, places and objects come alive. From motion pictures to video games like Overwatch to the animated series Star Wars: Resistance, which debuted this fall with Lucas Film Animation, Jon vocalizes the human and non-human sounds that enthrall audiences.

It’s an art form that complements Jon’s work as a comedian and composer of music—and one that remains in high demand both in conjunction with technology, and despite technology.

On any given day, Jon can be found in his Los Angeles studio, editing voiceover projects and auditions using Pro Tools software: cutting out breaths or plosives, clicks and pops, with ease and speed. Voice actors also use Source Connect software to send audio feeds anywhere using the Internet, providing a high-quality audio signal that is better than broadcast quality.

“It’s remarkable,” said the broadcasting major, who remembers a project from his college days that involved seamlessly cutting, editing and physically splicing together a ¼-inch audio tape.

“To imagine what the editors and producers had to do with physical tape media before digital recording and editing makes one really appreciate the advancements of technology,” Jon said. In Jon’s audio world, the advancements have replaced all of the expensive analog and digital hardware previously used to improve the sound of a recording, like equalizers, compressors and preamps. Now, they are often available as plug-ins or software equivalents, often at a fraction of the cost.

While robotic voices like Siri and Alexa continue to become more and more lifelike, they remain nowhere near human enough to replace voice actors for many projects. Jon, whose resume encompasses Robot Chicken, The Incredible Hulk (2008), Monster High, Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman Arkham Knight, God of War and many others, believes that technology augments creative abilities and originality, rather than replacing it. Robot voices just aren’t ready for prime time.

“The hard part is the inspiration, the creative process,” said Jon, who grew up in New Rochelle, N.Y. Tech has become more intertwined with art than ever before, simply making the process of creating it easier, he said.

In addition to his voice acting, the Sigma Chi brother composes music. When he graduated from SUNY Oswego, his mom gave him the gift of an 88-key, weighted-action keyboard. It had several sounds and the ability to record multiple tracks and save them to a memory card.

Today, Jon, who was an on-campus production assistant at WNYO and board operator at WRVO, can use that same keyboard as a MIDI controller: Meaning he plugs it into his computer to access recording software like Logic Pro.

“I now have access to thousands of sounds and instrument libraries of such high caliber, it can sound almost like an orchestra recorded it,” said Jon, who has created musical scores for short films
and projects for clients like Turner Sports.
“The digital canvas I have at my disposal
is unbelievable.”

It’s a canvas that has grown and allowed him to adapt his career from a childhood love of music, comedy and voices—all with the support of his friends and extensive family, he said.

“I was born to do this,” he said. “My family has always been totally on board.”

The voice of Jon Lipow ‘94 can be heard in dozens of projects. Hear them at jonathanlipow.com

And Jon’s favorite voice? A diabolical villain named Lord Blackthorne.

“The bad guys really allow me to let loose,” he said. “But I love being the good guys, too.”

Hear Jon’s favorite voice online. You can also read his thoughts on stand-up comedy and see the full interview below in our Web Exclusive content.

Tell us about the voices. The first voices I perfected were not voices at all. I would recreate the sound effects of things you hear all the time. A Volkswagen Beetle starting and shifting, then driving away. A European ambulance siren approaching and leaving (with doppler effect) An old Victrola or old AM radio broadcast. Classic video arcade games like Donkey Kong that I would play on people’s hands using their thumb as the joystick. There are many others, but you get the point.What’s your personal favorite?I have so many character voices that I enjoy performing. One that stands out to me is an evil arrogant villain called Lord Blackthorne. He is diabolical and so much fun to do. I love being the good guys too, but the bad guys really allow me to let loose. Can you provide a few examples of voice projects that you’ve worked on over the years?I have worked on several projects so far. Some examples are Robot Chicken, The Incredible Hulk (2008), Monster High, Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman Arkham Knight, God of War, Overwatch, and many others.Has technology impacted your voice acting work?Technology has had an enormous impact on my voice acting work. I remember back in my days at SUNY Oswego, as a broadcasting major, I had to take an audio recording of an interview that was on ¼” audio tape and replace the interviewer’s voice with my own. The end result was to make it sound as though I conducted an interview with this person (who was at that point deceased) seamlessly cut, and edited, physically spliced together and played back for the class to listen to and judge.That experience has given me an even greater appreciation for the digital editing and producing technology of today. On any given day, I am at home in my studio, editing voice over projects and auditions using Pro Tools software. Cutting out breaths or plosives, clicks and pops, etc. With utmost ease and speed. To imagine what the editors and producers had to do with physical tape media before digital recording and editing was so accessible to the masses make one really appreciate the advancements of technology. Also, replacing all of the expensive analog and digital hardware which can improve the sound of a recording, i.e. equalizers, compressors, preamps, etc. are now often available as plug-ins or software equivalents of the hardware they are replacing, often at a fraction of the cost.There is another technology that is very important and has changed the game for many voice actors and studios out there called Source Connect. This software allows a person to record at a studio, home studios too, and, in real time, have their audio be recorded remotely on the recipients end, similar to an ISDN line, but using the faster internet and without the expense of ISDN equipment and the subsequent high cost of that dedicated phone line. The recipient simply needs to have the Source Connect software on their end, and the audio feed will travel the internet, across the globe if need be, and they’ll be receiving a high-quality audio signal that is better than broadcast quality. I think it’s quite remarkable.You are also a musician – can you share a little about what you do as far as process, and how technology is part of that process for you?I love to compose music. I have scored some short films for friends of mine and written songs based on whatever creative impulses inspire me at the time. Technology once again rears it’s glorious face. When I graduated from SUNY Oswego, my mom bought me an 88 key weighted action keyboard. It had several sounds on board and the ability to record multiple tracks. This allowed me to compose songs on the keyboard and save them to a memory card. Today, I can use that same keyboard as a MIDI controller, which means, I plug it in to my computer which has recording software like Logic Pro. I now have access to thousands of sounds and instrument libraries of such high caliber, it can sound like an orchestra recorded it (almost). The digital canvas I have at my disposal is unbelievable. How far technology has come cannot be overstated.You’re also a stand-up comedian. Has that changed because of technology?In my opinion, technology has not changed stand up that much, but it has changed the accessibility of comedy. One can simply post a video of their standup on many of the widely viewed internet platforms and have access to a forum of viewers that, in the past, would only be possible by TV, film, or radio. One would have to cross through many checkpoints to get their stand up seen by many viewers, many who may not get very far depending on their performance. Now, the internet can be the judge. You put it out there, and if the fans love it, they can give it millions of views, or retweet it, etc. The channels by which one would have to cross in the past have changed dramatically thanks to technology.As an artist, do you feel technology augments human creative abilities….and can it ever hurt the authenticity of a project?I absolutely believe that technology augments creative abilities. It gives greater access to creativity because the canvas by which to “paint” your music, or voice is so simple to apply. Simply turn on your computer, your mic and or instrument, open the software, create a new session file, choose your instruments and play away. The hard part is the inspiration, the creative process, that is the human element that may not always be in sync with the task at hand. Getting the technology to be ready to go when you are however, is a piece of cake. This facilitates the creative process immensely, because instead of spending time prepping the recording environment, potentially losing the thought or inspiring moment, you can be ready to go in about a minute.Who would you prefer to have a rap battle with: Siri or Alexa?Hmm, that’s a tough one. They both have their advantages and disadvantages and may not be ready for prime time when it comes to rapping. I guess I’d pick Siri, because she can actually be kind of sassy at times, and that’s important in a rap battle.When you were a student at Oswego, what were you active in?I was in the Sigma Chi fraternity and met many wonderful friends. I worked at the WNYO college radio station and WRVO the NPR radio station on campus. I enjoyed being a production assistant at WNYO and board operator at WRVO. I got to read the top stories and weather at the top of the hour on WRVO FM 90. That was a pretty cool gig.I enjoyed my broadcasting classes and remember recording a radio drama for one of them and the teacher and students agreed that I should be doing voice overs professionally. That was inspiring feedback to say the least.Did you get to use your voice skills much back then?I enjoyed being a production assistant at WNYO and board operator at WRVO. I got to read the top stories and weather at the top of the hour on WRVO FM 90. That was a pretty cool gig.Any current projects you’d care you share/what’s next for you?I recently booked the new hero Wrecking Ball in the game Overwatch. Also coming this fall, I’ll be playing several characters in the new animated series Star Wars: Resistance. I can’t say much more until projects are actually released, but there is more to come!What do you see for the future of art and technology?I see the continued refinement of the relationship of art and technology. One day I hope we can compose music by allowing a direct link of our brain and the recording medium, maybe a pneumonic connection of sorts. Ideas often sound so amazing in your head, but by the time you find the right instrument or voice for a particular part, some of the creativity may be lost. That would be a very interesting development.

]]>http://magazine.oswego.edu/2018/10/30/artists-use-technology-to-tell-stories-enhance-artistic-vision/feed/010382Changing the World One Smile at a Timehttp://magazine.oswego.edu/2018/04/13/changing-the-world-one-smile-at-a-time/
http://magazine.oswego.edu/2018/04/13/changing-the-world-one-smile-at-a-time/#respondFri, 13 Apr 2018 18:25:29 +0000http://magazine.oswego.edu/?p=10102

Osawa Owiti (front)—the recipient of Smile Train’s 1 millionth cleft surgery—gathered with (from left) his father, surgeon Dr. Edward Wayi, his mother, a former Smile Train employee and Smile Train CEO Susannah Melchior Schaefer ’90 to celebrate his changed life in a remote village in Tanzania, six months after Osawa underwent cleft surgery in 2014.

When Susannah Melchior Schaefer ’90 arrived in 2014 at a remote village in Tanzania, she was greeted by the entire community with a ceremony in her honor and a feast of chicken.

But more importantly, she was greeted by the smiling face of 6-year-old Osawa Owiti—the recipient of Smile Train’s 1 millionth cleft surgery.

“I have the best job in the world—seeing this kind of life change,” said Schaefer, the chief executive officer of the international nonprofit that is the world’s largest cleft repair and comprehensive cleft care organization. “He is just thriving, and his parents—and the whole village—are so happy about this transformation. You could just see the absolute delight and smiles on the faces. This is what I love about Smile Train.”

“ I am often asked, what drives me. It’s seeing Smile Train’s local programs in action. I cry every time I observe a cleft surgery on a child we’re helping. I like to think I have a small part in making that happen.”

— Susannah Melchior Schaefer ’90

Cleft lip and cleft palate are much more than cosmetic issues, as they often have debilitating health impacts, including problems speaking, eating and breathing. Because incidence rates of cleft are often higher in under-developed countries with high rates of poverty and poor access to health care, children and their families are frequently ostracized in their community due to a lack of understanding and awareness of cleft, Schaefer said.

“In some places, parents were hiding their children with cleft from society rather than getting them help,” Schaefer said. “Or their neighbors assumed that the parents of children with clefts were being punished for something that they had done or thought: ‘You laughed at cripples, you were not a nice person, you looked at the lunar eclipse.’ These are the things we were hearing, so we know awareness of cleft is still our No. 1 challenge.”

Osawa was identified through a mobile phone recruitment program pioneered by Smile Train’s partner hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and partially funded by Smile Train. The program engages ambassadors to identify cleft patients throughout Tanzania and uses mobile banking to fund patient travel to the hospital. Osawa and his mother then took the 700-mile trip to the hospital with Smile Train’s support.

“That’s our second challenge—patient mobilization,” Schaefer said. “We have a grant program to help hospitals support patient travel to the medical facilities.”

Schaefer had made the trip to the family’s village to celebrate the organization’s milestone surgery and to enable the doctor, Dr. Edward Wayi—one of the country’s only plastic surgeons—to see the impact his medical care has made on the children and their families’ lives.

Dr. Wayi is one of 2,100 medical professionals who partner with Smile Train to provide more than 120,000 surgeries in 85 countries every year.

Following the “teach-a-man-to-fish” model championed by founder Charles B. Wang, the organization focuses on training local doctors to perform cleft repair surgery in their communities. Those doctors then go on to train other doctors, creating a long-term, sustainable system.

“Susie’s trip to visit the 1 millionth patient certainly stands out to me,” said her husband, William Schaefer ’91. “It validates Smile Train’s work. It was a powerful moment. I am proud of her and what’s she’s achieved. Changing children’s lives at the scale she’s been able to do is remarkable.”

William said he admires his wife’s unrelenting drive and commitment throughout her career.

“I’ve never seen anyone who works as hard as she does,” William said.

But the quality that drew them together is their shared desire for adventure and a willingness to try new things—in addition to older siblings who initially attracted them to SUNY Oswego (Stephen Melchior ’89 and Dr. Cynthia Schaefer Bacon ’83).

Susannah Melchior ’90 and her future husband, William Schaefer ’91, during the couple’s last visit to campus in 1994—only a few weeks before they were married.

Bold Career Moves

A few weeks into a new job at her then-employer Computer Associates on Long Island, she agreed to manage the launch of Techno Vision, a book written by the company’s founder, chairman and CEO, Charles Wang. He was impressed with her work and created opportunities for her to continue to market the book in Asia. Schaefer took a chance and, with the complete support of her new husband, accepted the role.

Schaefer became the director of marketing in Asia for CA Technologies, where she built the organization’s presence throughout the region and hosted the first regional CA World conference in China. She later became a vice president and special assistant to Wang after serving as the company’s vice president and director of international marketing.

When Wang retired from Computer Associates in 2002, he invited Schaefer to join him as his assistant in his new venture as the owner of the New York Islanders hockey club.

Wang also asked Schaefer to serve on the board of a charitable organization that he founded, Smile Train. After serving as a member of the board for over 10 years, Schaefer became chief executive officer of the organization in 2013. In this role, she oversaw the rebranding of the non-profit and a revitalization of its fundraising, public relations and marketing efforts.

From Board to Boss

Shari Mason, vice president of communications at Smile Train, said Schaefer took what could have been a tricky situation during the transition from board member to boss to establish an open and collaborative work environment.

“Susie is very passionate about our cause, and it’s great working with someone whose whole heart is in it,” Mason said. “Through her, I’ve learned the importance of teamwork and not working in silos. She empowers people and trusts them to do their job.”

Mason worked closely with Schaefer on helping the nonprofit update its modes of communication with potential donors and supporters. The company decided to rebrand itself, launch a new web site and move away from relying on direct mail to push messaging to supporters.

“We wanted to have a deeper relationship with our donors,” Mason said.

The organization has developed a strong social media presence and has amped up its celebrity ambassador program, corporate partnerships, event-based fundraising and youth ambassador programs.

“Celebrities are so important in helping us elevate our brand and reach wider audiences,” said Schaefer, who has worked with a wide range of celebrities, including Lucy Hale of Pretty Little Liars, reality TV star and entrepreneur Kylie Jenner and supermodel Christie Brinkley. She gave examples of how the stars partner with the charity, such as Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics, launching a special edition lip kit to raise almost half a million dollars to provide new smiles to over 1,800 children born with clefts—which landed Smile Train on Jenner’s reality TV show, Life of Kylie.

Through Smile Train’s partnership with the Miss Universe Organization, Schaefer has the opportunity to work with the reigning Miss Universe, and international and state titleholders who serve as ambassadors to help raise awareness for the organization and cleft.

In addition to leading an organizational rebrand, Schaefer has worked to help secure funding for hundreds of thousands of new smiles, expand cleft surgical training and education programs throughout the world and establish organizational partnerships in Haiti and Rwanda.

Troy Reinhart, the senior vice president of development at Smile Train, said Schaefer makes his job easier.

“She has an open door policy so anyone can talk to her,” he said. “It’s great for our donors to be able to meet our CEO, and she’s so personable.” Reinhart said she also made some more pragmatic changes like allowing individual departments to put together their own budgets and identify its priorities.

“She put more strategy behind our business practices,” said Reinhart, who was one of the organization’s first employees. “Because she came from our board, she’s able to advocate on our behalf. She speaks our language and can interpret that to the board.”

“As a technology entrepreneur, Charles [Wang] has encouraged us to use technology to advance the level of care and the level of training,” Schaefer said. “We also built a charity that has data to inform future growth and our understanding of cleft on a global scale.”

The company developed Smile Train Express, a digital medical records database that contains a record for every patient, including a before and after photo, that in addition to being part of the system by which the organization reimburses hospitals for their Smile Train surgeries, also creates a resource for researchers and medical professionals studying cleft.

Under Schaefer’s leadership, the organization has received GuideStar’s 2017 Platinum “Seal of Transparency” and is a 2017 Top-Rated Nonprofit, according to greatnonprofits.org.

“I am often asked, what drives me,” she said. “It’s seeing Smile Train’s local programs in action. I cry every time I observe a cleft surgery on a child we’re helping. I like to think I have a small part in making that happen.”

Her passion inspires those around her.

“She is so compassionate,” Reinhart said. “When she’s speaking about waiting with the mother whose child is having cleft surgery, you know she is empathizing with what that mother is going through. Her love for our vision to help the children is moving.”

Mason recalled the moment in a staff meeting when Schaefer talked about meeting Osawa and his family.

“When she was sharing the story, the whole staff could truly see how his life was changed forever,” Mason said. “We also felt proud of the work we do. I will always remember that moment—seeing her passion and conviction that every single child deserves to have a chance for a healthy and productive life.”

Schaefer shares that passion with her husband and children, who support her every step of the way.

“I have an amazing husband and children who love what I do,” she said. “They get it. They understand how important this work is. You have to love what you do, and I do. I am so grateful.”

—By Margaret Spillett

Leah Landry ‘11, producer of the health and wellness radio show Take Care, interviewed Susannah Melchior Schaefer ’90 at the campus-based NPR affiliate, WRVO Public Media, in November 2017, when she returned to campus as part of the Oswego Alumni Association’s Alumni-In-Residence program. She also presented a lecture, which was sponsored by the Feinberg Family Fund, established by Robert Feinberg ’78 and his wife, Robbi, to support gender equity in the workplace.

“I’m on deck every day for that little girl who fell in love with the water,” said Jacqueline Michalski ’10, speaking of her own childhood as a competitive swimmer who transitioned her love of the sport into a four-year stint on the SUNY Oswego women’s swim team—helping the team win the SUNYAC Conference Championship in 2007.

Today, Michalski is at the helm of NCAA Division I men’s and women’s swim programs as the head coach of Eastern Illinois University, a role she has held since August 2014.

It’s a rare coaching gig: According to the NCAA, only around 3 percent of NCAA men’s teams are led by women; just 40 percent of women’s teams have a female head coach.

Michalski, who is originally from Chenango Forks, N.Y., has led the Panthers to new school records, designation as a College Swimming Coaches Association of America Scholar All-American Team, and in its most recent season, 32 top-16 finishes at the Summit League Championships.

“I know my four years spent in Laker Hall made me into the successful coach that I am today,” Michalski said. It wasn’t just the competition that propelled her, it was the camaraderie, great training partners and great friends, she said.

“The men’s and women’s teams acted very much as one, always motivating and encouraging others to succeed, despite gender,” Michalski said. “I took this team atmosphere, which I learned from Oswego, and carried it into my daily coaching life here at EIU. The men’s and women’s teams at times have combined practices, and work together as a unit to make each other better.”

From Doer to Teacher

In the high-scrutiny, travel-heavy, around-the-clock lifestyle of NCAA collegiate coaching, discipline and determination are key. Those are traits that former NCAA athletes have in spades; they spend their collegiate careers maintaining the focus and strength to compete at NCAA standards. In fact, Michalski is one of many former SUNY Oswego NCAA student-athletes who have leveraged lessons learned in the pool—or on the field, court and ice—to careers shaping programs and students at the elite level of play.

Take Joe Jones ’87 M’89, who transitioned from the Laker Hall basketball court to a Boston University head coach job, a position he’s held since the 2011-2012 season. Before becoming head coach, he was associate head coach for the Terriers and held coaching roles at Columbia, Villanova and Hofstra.

And one of Oswego State’s signature athletics programs—ice hockey—has had a number of student-athletes turned coaches, including T.J. Manastersky ’06, a Laker defenseman who went pro following graduation. Manastersky is now in his sixth season as the head coach of Curry College in Milton, Mass. It’s a role he has prepared for since childhood; he grew up in a coach’s office because his father was a collegiate hockey coach for York University.

T.J. Manastersky ’06

“I always knew that I wanted to be a coach when I finished playing,” said Manastersky, who is married to Oswego alumna Lindsay Gauthier Manastersky ’05; the couple have a son, Wesley Pierson, Oswego Class of 2039. “D3 hockey is so good, so competitive, and has so many great coaches working hard to be successful that I am fortunate to be a part of that group.”

Manastersky has fond memories of the ice hockey rivalry with Plattsburgh, and the bagel and tennis ball toss—which, he said, remain a truly unique tradition in sports. But it was the people and the lessons learned on the ice that stick with him as head coach today, he said.

“I learned how important it is to effectively communicate with your players,” Manastersky said. “It is a partnership.”

There’s also Jamie Dumont ’98, an impact player during his ice hockey career at Oswego State, who went on to assist the Laker coaching staff as a volunteer, leading Oswego into the NCAA tournament in 1998. Following his time in Oswego, he got his first taste of upper-level head coaching experience with the Italian Professional League’s Bolzano Hockey Club and the Dutch Premier League.

Jamie Dumont ’98

Dumont returned to his home state of Maine in fall 2011, and has been with the coaching staff of the Bowdoin College program ever since. He was named its head coach in 2016. Since Dumont’s return, the Polar Bears have won 83 games en route to two NESCAC Championships in a five-year span.

Back in 1998 when he volunteered at Oswego, it was the high level of responsibility afforded by then Head Coach George Roll and then Assistant Coach Ed Gosek ’83 M’01 that started Dumont on the path to coaching, he said.

“I was so fortunate,” Dumont said. “Oswego State was so good to me, and that stays in your heart.”

Dumont, who played at Romney Field House as a student, returned to campus with his Bowdoin team in 2014 as part of first round action in the NCAA Division III Men’s Ice Hockey Championship that season.

“The new [Marano Campus Center] rink is beautiful,” Dumont said. “That’s something that’s special about Oswego—how it feels about its program, and how the students and the town support it. It’s a great environment.”

Lauren Marois ’13

Just down the New York State Thruway—and a few hours drive east of the LeMoyne College (Syracuse) women’s lacrosse program headed by Kathy Taylor M’11—is the Sage Colleges, where the women’s lacrosse team is run byLauren Marois ’13. Under Marois’s direction, the 2017 team enjoyed the most successful season in the program’s nine-year history that wrapped with the team garnering its first post-season appearance. Marois, who has been with the program for five years, including two years as head coach, brought her young team to compete for the first time in school history against her alma mater in March 2017.

“We had Sub Shop on Bridge Street, and I got to show them Oswego—a piece of my life,” Marois said. It was a life where the lacrosse goalie—who entered Oswego as an undeclared major (“All I knew was that I wanted to play lacrosse”)—gained valuable skills that shaped her coaching style.

“I learned a lot of my values at Oswego,” Marois said. “I also can tell my students: I’ve been there, too. I did it for four years; I can help you. I want them to know academics comes first; they are here for an education. I was taught that at Oswego.”

In addition to her title as head coach, Marois is the Sage Colleges assistant sports information director, and plans to pursue an advanced degree in athletics administration.

“Athletics has been such a huge part of my life,” said Marois, who said the friendships she forged as an Oswego player are still her closest. “I think for a lot of us, after four years of being a college athlete, you just aren’t ready to give it up.”

Starting New Programs

Alumni aren’t just carrying on traditions of college team successes all over the country; they have been instrumental in starting—and restarting—programs, too.

There hadn’t been a baseball game played at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., in more than 75 years, until Andy Salvatore ’11 restarted the program in 2013. The donation of a turf facility prompted Bard to bring baseball back, and Salvatore, who took on the head coach role for Bard after a few years as assistant coach at Oswego State, jumped at the opportunity.

“I’m lucky to be able to call it ‘work’ everyday,” Salvatore said. “I liked the idea of recruiting nationally, which Bard definitely offers.”

After going 0-20-1 in conference play in 2014—Bard’s first year in the Liberty League, the young team has begun racking up a double-digit tally’s worth of league wins. Several players have won All-Liberty League awards and the 2017 roster reached 35 players, which is on par with other teams in the league.

“It has been a chance to start from the ground up, and we are well on our way to building something special,” Salvatore said.

Other collegiate program builders include golfer Steve Serling ’77, who earned 1975 NCAA Championship Honorable Mention All-America accolades for Oswego, as the Lakers finished 12th in the nation that year. Serling was part of three-straight SUNYAC golf titles on behalf of Oswego. He eventually helped launch the women’s golf program at LeMoyne College in 2010, as the Dolphins’ first head coach. In 2015, his final season at Le Moyne before retiring, Serling was named Northeast-10 Conference Coach of the Year.

Adam Waterhouse ’84

Adam Waterhouse ’84, who co-captained the Oswego State tennis team in 1983-1984, also built a collegiate program from scratch.

Farmingdale State, on New York’s Long Island, hired Waterhouse in the fall of 2006 to develop both its men’s and women’s tennis programs. In their first season, he led the women to a 4-5 record and the men to a 5-7 record, with both teams making appearances in the Conference Tournament.

For Waterhouse, “the transition from player to coach happened slowly over time.”

“I initially became a part-time teaching professional and discovered that I enjoyed teaching the game to kids,” Waterhouse said.

The Plainedge High School biology teacher coached high school teams for almost 20 years before the college opportunity became available; as a collegiate coach, he has earned Skyline Conference Coach of the Year honors six times.

“Playing tennis at SUNY Oswego was an amazing experience,” said Waterhouse, who has three children with his wife, Denise Weimer Waterhouse ’83. “The most important lesson that I learned as an athlete was what it takes to be a respected and inspiring coach. Coach John Glinski led by example and I think of him often when I am on the courts with my own players. He treated me with kindness, respect, and was not afraid to let me know when I needed to work harder. I am the coach I am today in large part because of him.”

It’s a common thread among yesterday’s athletes who are today’s coaches: Appreciation for the Oswego State coaches who taught them.

Life Lessons

Back in the pool at EIU, Michalski puts her team through timed drills. She shouts encouragement. She shares her keen knowledge and competitiveness with her team—qualities that help them take on the challenges of not just the swimming pool, but of life itself, too.

“Many define a successful coach by the record board or by the win-loss column,” Michalski said. “I define a successful coach by how well the athletes do through their journey through college and beyond. I believe my job is to set the bar high in all areas: academic, athletics and life. This sets a foundation for years well beyond college.

Athletic Coaching Minor

While alumni serve as collegiate coaches both at home and around the nation, the college has a minor to train coaching staff at the high school level. The athletic coaching minor is designed for students who wish to coach in New York State secondary schools (grades 7-12). Coursework extends beyond the credits required for the New York State Temporary Coaching License. These Oswego State-trained future coaches are preparing high school students to be the next athletes on the NCAA stage.

One Saturday afternoon, Martha Swan ’81 wandered into a SUNY Oswego campus lecture that would set her life’s path.

Swan in Santo Tomas del Norte, Nicaragua, in 1986. The village suffered mortar attacks in clashes between Nicaraguan soldiers and contra rebels along the border with Honduras.

The lecture was about the importance of being bilingual, and it was presented by the late Dr. Diana Balmori, associate professor of history, an emigré from Argentina who taught at SUNY Oswego from 1974 to 1983.

“It was my amazing fortune that I just happened to walk into that lecture,” Swan said. “At that point I wasn’t taking a language, but I left there determined to become bilingual.”

From that moment was born a career as a Spanish teacher, as well as the spark of a lifelong spirit of activism that has spanned the Americas and come to rest most recently in the Adirondack Mountains. In addition to teaching Spanish in the tiny Adirondack district of Newcomb Central, Swan’s extensive resume as an educator and advocate for human rights includes her latest project—Friends in the Adirondacks, a derivative of her John Brown Lives! program—founded to promote social justice through the exploration of issues, social movements and historic events.

Like Swan’s career and many of her projects, Friends in the Adirondacks started with a pivotal encounter; this one while heading to her car outside of the maximum security Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, N.Y., in 2016.

“It was a blistering hot day, and three people—it looked like a mom and two grown children—were trying to find the visitors’ entrance, and the mom was frantic,” Swan said.

Martha Swan ’81

Swan directed them on how to get inside the massive facility. As Swan was driving away, she saw that the family was already back outside. She stopped to ask if everything was OK. The family shared that they had traveled more than 300 miles to see a family member, but had missed visiting hours.

Swan said she offered the family her home while they figured out a plan, but they declined her hospitality.

Swan drove away; then regretted not offering her telephone number, just in case. She turned her car around to see if they were still there, but the family was gone.

“I felt awful that I couldn’t do anything for them,” Swan said. Those three people she met that day, she said, are among the multitude of families who travel to the North Country to visit inmates every year. “The Adirondacks is ringed with prisons. It’s a complicated and delicate topic for people to pull back the curtain and take a look at how we have built our economy on mass incarceration, and really consider how the local people, the inmates and their families are impacted.”

It was that roadside meeting that spurred Swan, along with co-founder of Friends in the Adirondacks Soffiyah Elijah, to build a network of individuals and families in the North Country to provide hospitality and other kinds of support for visitors. Families who are too far away to easily visit can request to have a local visitor sent into the prison to check up on a loved one.

“My organization, Alliance of Families for Justice, supports families with incarcerated loved ones in a myriad of ways,” said Elijah, who is based in New York City. “Martha and I agreed that our organizations should collaborate to expand the support that could be provided.”

It was an easy alliance to make, Elijah said.

“Martha’s generosity of spirit, selfless commitment to justice and deeply reflective insights serve to make her a calm force with which to reckon,” Elijah said. “Her devotion to building a better world is both infectious and inspiring.”

Not only is the mission of Friends in the Adirondacks part of Swan’s personal definition of a “truly welcoming Adirondacks,” it is, more instinctually, a compassion for others that she traces to Dr. Balmori and her time at SUNY Oswego, she said.

“I wasn’t necessarily paying attention to the world, until I was a student at Oswego,” Swan said. She choked up with emotion as she talked about the moment her ambitions first intersected with activism: Once she began studying Spanish at SUNY Oswego, she found herself volunteering for organizations, including the Syracuse Peace Council, based in her hometown. That led to helping refugees from South America, particularly those escaping violence and repression in Guatemala and El Salvador.

Swan (center) attending John Brown Day in 2016 in Lake Placid, N.Y. She is the founder of John Brown Lives!, an organization dedicated to social justice and education.

“I was all of 20 years old,” she said. “I was so privileged to be this 20-year-old kid who knew so little, to translate for them, to tell their stories when they so desperately needed it.”

Later, Swan would live in Central America. Eventually, her path took her to New York City and ultimately—the mountains of her home state, where she became development director for an Adirondack environmental organization. She continued teaching and founded the John Brown Lives! organization after a visit to Harper’s Ferry, W.V., where history captured her imagination.

“John Brown was committed to supporting those who are enslaved, and ending slavery,” Swan said. “Why has he been vilified by history? I was compelled to change this. This history needs to be known.”

Slavery is an issue that remains relevant today, she said, and one that has influenced her commitment to others. Swan’s organization based on Brown’s namesake has offered educational events ranging from film screenings to community readings to concerts, in addition to the annual John Brown Day—a day dedicated to human rights and liberation held at the John Brown Farm State Historic Site in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Just as pivotal encounters have shaped her pursuits, so have her students and her love of language.

“As a teacher I believe the study of language is just the vehicle for inquiry, discovery and engagement,” she said. Her current Newcomb students have helped her to shape a new direction of activism. Swan most recently joined the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Planet Stewards Education Project, which provides educators working with elementary through college-aged students with the knowledge and resources needed to respond to environmental challenges.

Swan working with students in the Newcomb (N.Y.) Central School District Photo: Autumn Goerner

“We’re studying things like marine sanctuaries, in Spanish—and learning about what’s damaging our oceans,” Swan said. “It’s something the students are interested in, and it’s meaningful to me. And who knows? Maybe I’ll learn how to scuba dive.

“I tell my students: Learning Spanish—any language, really—will enrich your life beyond any measure you can ever imagine in terms of the friends you’ll make, the experiences you’ll have and your understanding of the world,” Swan said.
“It did exactly that, for me.”

Jim Gordon ’73 arrived at SUNY Oswego in fall 1969, having graduated as the only black student among a class of 36 in his rural Dutchess County (N.Y.) high school. So when he discovered his roommate was white, it didn’t come as a surprise to him.

However, his roommates’ parents had a slightly different reaction.

“Once they got adjusted, they were very nice,” said Gordon, who had the same roommate for three years at Oswego. “They would bring us clams from Long Island.”

Unlike most of the 100 black students entering Oswego that fall, Gordon didn’t come through the then newly-established Educational Opportunity Program, which provides additional support to make higher education possible for students who have the potential to succeed, despite poor preparation and limited financial resources. Many of the students in EOP came from mostly all-black communities in urban settings such as New York City and Rochester, so the Oswego community was a bit of a culture shock for them.

But for Gordon and fellow Dutchess County native Roger Hancock ’74, their first immersion in African-American culture came from the Black Student Union at Oswego.

“It was through BSU that we learned about black culture and history,” Gordon said. “This was a tumultuous time in the country—with the Kent State shooting, Attica riots, Vietnam War protests, the Chicago seven (or really eight) and Black Power Movement. But amid this turmoil, from my perspective, Oswego was a safe haven, a place where it was safe to be black—whatever that meant to you.”

Gordon said he will never forget meeting Mohammad Ali in the spring 1971, as part of the second annual Black History Week started by the Black Student Union. The meeting occurred during a BSU reception immediately following Ali’s standing-room only lecture in Hewitt Union.

“He was charisma-plus!” Gordon said. “He spoke about staying true to his convictions, and you could really see the strength of his character. It was so exciting to be able to interact with him on a personal level like that—and the reception was only for BSU students. The college was great in giving BSU the funding it needed to bring in speakers who exposed Upstate New York to a broader view of the world.”

That tradition of bringing in culturally rich programs and speakers, sponsored by BSU, has continued throughout the past 50 years. In recognition of this milestone anniversary, hundreds gathered Feb. 23-24 for a weekend of events to celebrate BSU’s contributions to the college and the thousands of campus and community members who have benefitted from the organization’s activities across five decades.

The weekend served as a grand finale to the college’s Black History Month activities, which also included a concert featuring the works of black composers, Maarifa educational presentations and Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration with speaker Bakari Sellers, a CNN political analyst, lawyer and activist.

For Justin Brantley ’15 M’16, returning to campus for BSU’s 50th Anniversary Reunion was a way for him to continue the mission of “Lifting As We Climb”—a motto adopted by the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs in the late 1800s and a philosophy that Brantley has aspired to live by.

“It takes a village to raise a child, but any one of us can be the light that directs someone who may need it most,” Brantley said during his keynote address at the BSU 50th dinner celebration on Feb. 24 in Hewitt Union Ballroom. “Mentorship, I believe, is what has kept the fire shining bright for the union. It has long been a glaring need in our community.”

During his address, Brantley, who now works as an auditor at EisnerAmper LLP in Manhattan, shared some highlights from the union’s 50-year history, including bringing to campus Ali and several other high-profile speakers such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Cornel West and Louis Farrakhan.

Before Brantley’s address, the Image Step dance club performed a piece that drew from the celebration’s theme, “Remember the Time.” The performance included Michael Jackson’s song of the same name, percussive stepping and a spoken word conversation that wove together important contributions by black men and women throughout American history that were not shared in most history books.

Their performance was one of several throughout the night. Members of the Gospel Choir, the African Student Organization dance team, Ritmo (the Latino Student Union’s dance club), the Caribbean Student Association’s dance group and others shared their talents and their culture through musical and dance performances, and current BSU student leaders also addressed the several hundred people gathered for the 50th celebration.

Photo: Matt Cummins

“Before I talk about today, I’d like to talk about all the yesterdays I had leading up to this moment,” said BSU Vice President Marquel Jeffries ’19. “I was the first in my family to go to college. I didn’t know anyone on campus, and there weren’t many people who looked like me.”

He described how as a freshman, he met Brantley at the Involvement Fair and got involved in BSU.

“Justin Brantley told me, ‘You’re the future,’” Jeffries said. “I took what he said and ran with it … Thanks for introducing me to BSU and for changing my life.”

Denee Scott ’94 M’98, director of school counseling at Hammond Middle School in Alexandria, Va., shared a similar sentiment about her experience with the student organization.

“BSU was awesome; it was my family on campus,” said Scott, who held leadership roles with the union and was excited to be back on campus—the first time in 10 years—for the celebration. “I made lasting friendships through BSU.”

One of those friends was Oswego Alumni Association Board Member La-Dana Renee Jenkins ’94, who drove from New Jersey early Saturday morning to make it in time for the alumni panel, which was co-sponsored by the SUNY Oswego chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants.

The panel featured Brantley; Tiphanie Gonzalez ’05 M’07, assistant professor in the counseling and psychological services department at SUNY Oswego; Howard Gordon ’74 M’78, executive assistant to the president and special assistant for social equity; and Elaine Flowers ’16, graduate student in higher education administration at SUNY College at Buffalo.

The panelists shared experiences from their personal and professional life and answered questions ranging from their favorite courses and mentors to landing their first job to overcoming obstacles, including micro-aggressions and outright racism.

Gordon described the early days of BSU and the frequency with which “emergency meetings” were called to discuss conflicts or acts of aggression against members of the black community. He talked about the turbulent times that paved the way for future generations, and how he strived to be a role model for his family and for other members of the black community.

He counts among his proudest moments meeting his future wife and fellow Laker, Eva Evans, and the day he walked across the stage at his college commencement.

“I’ll never forget that,” Gordon said. “I could hear my mother shout, ‘Thank you, Jesus!’ real loud in Romney, and my little sister’s voice saying, ‘That’s Howard!’ I knew it wasn’t just for me. It was for other people.”

The panelists also shared tips with panel attendees on how to handle systemic and implicit bias such as off-handed remarks about “filling a quota.”

“When I hear something like that about Affirmative Action, I will often say, ‘Well, thank you. Now, let me show you what I can do,’” said Gonzalez, Ph.D., who is president of the American Counseling Association of New York State and specializes in multicultural counseling.

Gordon advised students not to accept being seen as a deficit.

“Challenge that in a polite and diplomatic way,” he said. “Ask the question. Why do you see me that way? As filling a deficit?”

Keonna I. Wren ’19, current BSU president, said she was pleased with how the 50th Anniversary Reunion turned out and looks forward to seeing what the next 50 years hold.

“A lot of students coming in don’t think our voices are heard,” she said. “But when they get here, they get to talk about issues [of race, diversity and the black experience]. That’s how I think we’ve lasted so long, because we do have a voice and we do talk about issues and students do feel heard. The Black Student Union will be around for another 50 years because of the importance it holds on this campus.”

While BSU’s future has yet to be written, the first 50 years of its existence has made a difference in many lives. The anniversary prompted Jim Gordon and Hancock to reflect on their time at Oswego.

“Our incredible experiences of being on the Oswego campus from 1969 to 1973 created a lifelong toolkit that we each could draw upon to navigate the challenges in both our professional and personal relationships,” Hancock said. “We are amazed on how often we reached back to the memories of our Oswego-era experiences and the brotherhood that was forged that we enjoy even more in retrospect.

“We marvel at the evolution of the campus over the years and are exceptionally proud of how Howard Gordon has played a key role in nurturing BSU while in its infancy, which now has resulted in a strong diverse student body and is part of the DNA of the Oswego campus.”

Howard Gordon “74 M’78Photo: Matt Cummins

]]>http://magazine.oswego.edu/2018/04/01/black-student-union-enriches-oswego-campus-for-50-years/feed/010090Leveraging the Laker Connection: Throughout their lives, alumni and students benefit from a range of professional development tools, including the most important—each other. —Margaret Spilletthttp://magazine.oswego.edu/2017/12/07/leveraging-the-laker-connection-throughout-their-lives-alumni-and-students-benefit-from-a-range-of-professional-development-tools-including-the-most-important-each-other-margare/
http://magazine.oswego.edu/2017/12/07/leveraging-the-laker-connection-throughout-their-lives-alumni-and-students-benefit-from-a-range-of-professional-development-tools-including-the-most-important-each-other-margare/#respondFri, 08 Dec 2017 00:24:57 +0000http://magazine.oswego.edu/?p=9847

Photo: Robert Mescavage

Jeff Knauss ’07 (above left) was a brand new father and the sole breadwinner for his family when he was offered a promotion to vice president of a broadcasting company in Syracuse, N.Y., in 2014. But instead of accepting the position, he gave his notice and left behind a steady salary with health insurance and other benefits to launch his own company.

Why? “Because of Jake,” Knauss said.

Knauss said he had struck up a friendship with Jake Tanner ’12 (above right) after the latter had presented on digital marketing at the Tech Garden in Syracuse a few years before. The pair quickly noticed how their skills complemented each other: Tanner had the technical skills to understand search engine optimization and the role technology plays in marketing—the “backend stuff,” and Knauss had the interpersonal skills and marketing sales experience to be the “front-end guy.”

“The fact that we both attended SUNY Oswego definitely helped us bond over our experiences from college,” Knauss said. “It helped us create a friendship, which evolved into a great business partnership.”

Less than three years later, the duo has developed the Digital Hyve into one of the fastest-growing private companies in America. Named the CenterState CEO’s 2017 Business of the Year and earning the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2017 Excellence in Small Business Award, the company expects to bring in $5.5 million in revenue this year and just moved into a 7,500-square foot space overlooking Clinton Square in Syracuse, to accommodate its 23 full-time employees. Of those employees, six—or one-quarter—attended SUNY Oswego.

“I’ve found that people who went to SUNY Oswego tend to be hard workers, and it is incredibly rewarding to see the talent coming from my alma mater,” said Knauss, who has hired Oswego alumni to fill diverse roles within his company, including in human resources, web development, graphic design and account management.

“The SUNY Oswego alumni network is very strong in Upstate New York,” he said. “The network is also far-reaching, as I have made many friends through the alumni network who live all over the country. I think people are really surprised how many doors can be opened with a degree from SUNY Oswego.”

Knauss has returned to campus often to speak with students and share his experience. Most recently, he delivered the keynote address for the inaugural Launch It! competition, during which student entrepreneurs pitched their business ideas to a panel of judges. (See Story)

Photo: Matt Cummins

He also connects frequently with Career Services to make them aware of career and internship opportunities available at his company. He makes time to mentor and advise students, such as Will Walsh ’21, who visited Knauss at the Digital Hyve on a Friday afternoon in October to seek guidance on his own business venture.

Knauss and so many other alumni leverage their SUNY Oswego connections to strengthen their professional networks and create career opportunities for themselves and others. Sometimes these connections happen organically, as it did for Knauss and Tanner. Many times, these relationships begin at events or through programs sponsored by the Oswego Alumni Association (OAA), with support from The Fund for Oswego, that deliberately bring together Oswego students and alumni for networking.

ASK-ing Alumni for Help

For example, Andy Miller ’92 volunteered to mentor SUNY Oswego students through the Alumni Sharing Knowledge (ASK) program and was paired with then business administration student Kayla Doan ’11. That connection led to Miller hiring Doan to work with him at Constant Contact in Boston. Doan then began to mentor business administration and public relations double major Sarah Miller ’15 (no relation to Andy) who they brought on as an intern at the company.

Andy Miller ’92

Two years later, Andy Miller hired Sarah Miller to work for him at AARP, where he currently is senior vice president of innovation and product development and she is an innovation associate. Both remain in regular communication with Doan, who is now innovation program manager at Constant Contact.

Kayla Doan ’11

“Both Kayla and Andy have been paramount in my career journey,” Sarah Miller said. “I can always turn to Kayla when I have questions about my career, finances or just life in general. She’s taught me so much about how to be successful and go after what I want … The whole trajectory of my life changed just from one simple email from Kayla. You never know who you are going to meet and how they will impact your life.”

Sarah Miller ’15

The two women have a made a point of returning to campus whenever they can through the Alumni-In-Residence (AIR) program to meet with current students, share advice and be a first link in the students’ professional network.

“Our story is a unique representation of how to create a string of alum all working together harnessing the power of the Oswego network,” Andy Miller said. “My network of Oswego friends is the strongest part of my overall professional network. I remain good friends with a large group of people from Oswego who are now all over the country in many different industries.”

Steve Doran ’82

Volunteering through the ASK program, Jeff Storch ’05M’06, a senior tax manager with Deloitte Tax LLP in San Diego, said he can maintain his connections to Oswego. He said he will always feel grateful for the professional assistance he received from Steve Doran ’82, a member of the Oswego College Foundation Board of Directors and a managing director at Fidelity Information Services, who helped him land his first accounting internship in New York City. They met during the OAA’s annual New York City Career Connections student networking event.

Jeff Storch ’05 M’06

Storch returned the favor by assisting Emily Kelly ’14 M’15 through the ASK program, which gave her an edge as she applied for jobs. He checks in with her periodically to congratulate her on career successes, such as a recent promotion to senior audit associate at her employer, Fust Charles Chambers LLP in Baldwinsville, N.Y.

Emily Kelly ’14 M’15

“I have helped many accounting students make connections, review resumes and

prepare for interviews and other related activities,” Storch said. “I’m happy to see that ASK and other alumni programs that existed when I was at Oswego still exist today, and I look forward to seeing these program last for decades to come.”

Knowing your Network

Paul Brennan ’93, senior vice president of ad sales at Sony Pictures Television in New York City, estimates that he has mentored or assisted more than 50 Oswego alumni whom he met through the ASK program and through the New York City Career Connections event, held in January every year.

“During my 22 years in the advertising industry, I have been very proud to open doors for many fellow Oswego alumni,” said Brennan, who also serves on the Oswego Alumni Association Board of Directors. “I have worked to place people at different media companies and also hired Oswego alumni here at Sony and in previous places of employment.

“SUNY Oswego produces a certain type of person,” he said. “I can see it in their eyes and hear it in their voices. They are hungrier than most, and it gives me great pleasure to help anyone from SUNY Oswego because I know that they will not let us down. They will work harder, push farther and have zero sense of entitlement.”

Tim Barnhart’02 said his employer, Northwestern Mutual Life, has had similar success with SUNY Oswego alumni.

“The company knows what they’re going to get with an Oswego alum,” said Barnhart, managing director of Northwestern Mutual’s Syracuse office. “A career with us allows people to build whatever future they want, so there’s unlimited income potential, unlimited flexibility. You can have as much impact as you want to create. Oswego students seem to gravitate more toward those kinds of opportunities.”

Barnhart also said the college has been a great partner in promoting internship opportunities to students, coordinating on-campus interviews with the company, inviting the company to attend career fairs and assisting the company in other on-campus activities.

“We have had an incredibly strong internship program with Oswego,” said Barnhart, who is the national chair for The Fund for Oswego and also serves as a member at-large on the OAA Board of Directors. For example, Barnhart said he and the two other students who interned with Northwestern as Oswego students are still with the company—Cody Dolly ’04, who is a managing director in Westchester, N.Y., and Steve Abbass ’03, who became the company’s youngest managing partner in 2014.

And the hiring of Oswego interns continues, Barnhart said. Former intern Justin Doty ’17 is joining the company full-time after graduating in December, and he was recruited by the company’s college unit director Jonah Coburn ’10 who, in turn, was recruited by Barnhart, who was mentored by Bob Brutsch ’71.

“Our success with the internship program has always driven great candidates to us on the full-time side,” Barnhart said. “Northwestern has had such a great relationship with Oswego, and that makes such a big difference.”

Tapping into Talent

Once the Oswego lines have been established, the talent can flood into a company.

Joan Reinhardt Cear ’80, senior vice president at Kellen, a full service public relations, public affairs and digital agency headquartered in New York City, has opened opportunities for Oswego students and alumni for more than a decade at Kellen.

“I have nurtured a network that I think has helped several graduates start or map their careers—some of whom we’ve hired, and others with whom I met, offered a little advice or maybe helped them make a connection,” said Cear, who has been active as an AIR visitor and a keynote speaker and attendee at New York City Career Connections.

Cear said the Oswego network—particularly her peers who serve with her on the School of Communication, Media and the Arts Advisory Board—continues to help her own career.

“Recently, when I had a client interested in making a documentary, Barry Gliner ’84, who heads post production at Discovery Communications, met with me to explain how documentaries make their way to television,” Cear said. “Another alumnus, Kevin Kennison ’82, prepared a proposal for one of my clients to use costumed actors in New York City subways to promote e-book reading. These resources would not have been available to me unless I had become active in the alumni network.”

Maurice “Mo” Lepine ’84 M’89 said he considers the Oswego network to be among the most influential reasons for his success as a teacher.

From initially being recruited to attend SUNY Oswego by his sister, Denise Lepine Krohn ’83, and his high school industrial arts teacher, Donald Cliffe ’59, to landing his first teaching position in the Baldwinsville (N.Y.) Central School District, to taking on leadership roles within state teaching associations, Lepine said Oswego alumni have been instrumental to his career.

Likewise, Lepine has hosted more than 30 student-teachers in his technology education classroom at D.S. Ray Middle School in Baldwinsville.

“I am proud to say that many of my former student teachers are active, productive and accomplished educators,” he said. “I have many teaching aids designed and created by my student teachers that I use with my students.”

He keeps his professional network strong and skills up-to-date by attending the Technology Conference hosted annually by SUNY Oswego. He shares the advice he received from his Oswego alumni mentors with his student-teachers and new teachers.

“Join the local and state level associations, as you cannot survive by yourself and you need to network with other teachers across the state,” he said. “They also encouraged me to take leadership roles within the organization and to attend conferences. That advice really did provide me with the strong network that has helped my teaching tremendously.”

Lorenzo Ciniglio Photography

Providing Professional Perspective

Gary Morris ’88, director of SUNY Oswego’s Career Services, also considers alumni one of the most important resources available to students as they develop their careers.

Alumni speakers often give students a firsthand look at life in a given industry or position, which can help students identify or refine their career plans.

Cydni Williams ’13 (left), channel marketing manager for Facebook, and Sonny Goldbaum ’16, account manager for Advance Media New York, spoke with students during an Oct. 12 networking opportunity at the American Marketing Association Conference in Sheldon Hall ballroom.

Working in conjunction with the alumni office, Career Services invites alumni back to conduct mock interviews, review student resumes or participate in such activities as “speed networking,” etiquette dinners, and networking/wine-tasting events.

“These events just wouldn’t have the same impact without our alumni providing the real-world perspective,” Morris said.

Wei Wang M’15 said a presentation by AIR visitor Lori Newman Cohen ’79 in a software design class changed the course of her life. Wang, who came to Oswego from her home in China, was so interested in Cohen’s discussion of data warehousing at New York Life Insurance Company that she emailed Cohen to keep the conversation going.

When a position opened, Cohen reached out to Wang and ended up hiring her. Today, Wang is a data analyst at New York Life, and although Cohen no longer works there, the pair have stayed in contact.

“I am grateful for the good job opportunity, but more important than that, I feel lucky to have met someone like Lori, who not only gave me the opportunity but also encouraged me to grow stronger,” said Wang, who graduated with a master’s in human computer interaction. “She is one of my most important sources of inspiration. She said that she sees herself in me when she was early in her career, and she said she wants me to help more young students, as she has helped me. I definitely will!”

Like Wang, biology major Bianca Fernandez ’19 sought out assistance from her alumni network before graduating. Fernandez connected with Betsy Oberst, associate vice president of alumni relations and stewardship, during a summer “send-off” event in New York City for incoming freshmen and their families in August. Oberst linked Fernandez, who wanted to pursue optemetry, with Dr. David Troilo ’80, who is the current vice president and dean for academic affairs at SUNY State College of Optometry.

Troilo met with Fernandez in New York City and gave her a tour of the school, talked with her about the program and introduced her to other faculty members.

“This networking opportunity gave me more insight about the career path that I am leaning towards and connected me with several members working at that institution,” said Fernandez, who is currently vice president of SUNY Oswego’s Pre-Optometry Club. “I am extremely grateful.”

Lifelong Career Services Access

In addition to a loyal and dedicated alumni network to assist with professional development and opportunities, all SUNY Oswego students and alumni have access to an award-winning Career Services office. See Related Story

“Everything we do, we do for alumni, for free, for life,” Morris said. “We bring a lot of very high-quality online resources and tools to bear for our students and alums that they can access from anywhere in the world. Our alumni are welcome to attend any event or program we run—on either side of the table.

“We love to have our alumni show up at a healthcare conference or career fair and talk to our students,” Morris said. “But if that alum is experiencing some kind of career transition, she can come spend some time on the other side of the table and interact with the 85 to 90 organizations in the Marano Campus Center during the Career Fair in October or March, and see what the possibilities are for the future.”

While Career Services staff members’ first priority is supporting the 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students, the staff will accommodate one-on-one meetings with alumni, as their time allows.

And Diamond Walters ’15 said she couldn’t be more thankful for that.

As a student, Walters met with Career Services staff member Jackie Campbell Wallace ’02 M’04 who encouraged Walters to attend the Fall Career Fair during her junior year. She did and met a representative from the Peace Corps.

After graduating in 2015 with her degree in human development, Walters went to Ghana, West Africa, where she is now a health educator. As she finishes up her Peace Corps assignment, she began to think about her next steps and decided to reconnect with Career Services.

She traveled an hour to the closest city with an Internet connection so she could email Wallace. They set up a time to Skype and talk through Walters’ plans to apply to graduate school.

“I was juggling educating junior high school students on HIV/AIDS and malaria prevention, working on a community household latrine project and applying to graduate schools in the U.S. with limited access to Internet,” Walters said. “Jackie worked with me every step of the way. I really appreciate and am grateful to her for all of her help.”

Thanks to the assistance she received from her alma mater, Walters said she expects to pursue an advanced degree in international political economy and development at Fordham University in fall 2018.

“Without my Oswego degree, I could not have joined the Peace Corps, and without my Peace Corps service, I would not have gained all the amazing experiences and opportunities that I have now,” Walters said. “This experience makes me truly value the work I am doing in Ghana. My service is a very personal and rewarding journey for me.”

And at the end of the day, that is the goal, Morris said.

SUNY Oswego biochemistry and chemistry students Jasmine Gomez ’18, Tienna Deroy ’18, Jon’Renee Jones ’21, Veronika Malinowski ’19 and Kimberlynn Sprague ’19 toured Bausch & Lomb in Rochester, N.Y. During the Sept. 21 visit, analytical chemists Andrew Hoteling ’91 and Steve Maier ’84 M’88, and quality engineer Tracie Martineau ’03 M’05 spoke about the history of the company and led a tour of the company’s operations. The trip was sponsored by the Center for Experiential Learning, Career Services and the Chemistry Department.

“Ultimately, we want the same thing for all of our students and alumni—that we help them discover the life they are meant to live and that we prepare them to compete for the amazing life that they’ve identified,” Morris said. “Our default is not to think about what students can do with a certain major. Our default is to help them explore what they want to do with their lives. Ideally, you can’t go wrong with that approach because you’re always focused on the life goal instead of today’s goal.”

And that’s a message that also resonates with Knauss and his team at the Digital Hyve.

The company is cultivating a workplace that assists others in achieving their commercial and marketing goals while also supporting all facets of its own employees’ lives.

From the lactation and family playroom to the staff kitchen and dining area to flexible work hours and strong benefits package, the 2017 Business Journal News Network’s Central New York Best Places to Work award-winner strives to uphold the company motto, which is painted on the wall, thanks to the talents of BFA alumnus and graphic designer Connor DeHaan ’16:

“Better every day,” it reads.

Paul Brennan ’93

Communication Studies/Public Relations, Psychology Minor

Senior Vice President of Ad Sales,
Sony Pictures Television

New York City

Best career advice: “‘Plan your work, and work your plan.’ I keep a ‘to do’ list on my desk at all times (and one at home) and anything that needs to get done hits that list. I love nothing more than crossing tasks off of that list and moving through my day.”

If only I had known: “What a huge game changer the digital world would be in the areas of entertainment and media.”

Diamond Walters ’15

Human Development

Volunteer/Health Educator

Peace Corps

Ghana, West Africa

Best career advice: “‘If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.’-Marc Anthony. I apply this quote in my daily life.”

If only I had known: “I could accomplish anything if I put my mind, heart and soul into it.”

Katrina VanIngen Vant ’00

Technology Education

Teacher and Department Coordinator, Central Square Central School District

Central Square, N.Y.

Best career advice: “Always put twice the amount of effort into a lesson than you expect to get out of your students during it. Students see that you care about the material and tend to care back.”

If only I had known: “Every career has a learning curve; you are not meant to be perfect at first. The first few years are supposed to be hard and exhausting, but it gets better over time.”

Emily Kelly ’14 M’15

Accounting, Economics Minor, MBA

Senior Audit Associate, Fust Charles Chambers

Baldwinsville, N.Y.

Best career advice: “Never stop asking questions. The only way you can truly grow in your career is to ask questions and, in turn, never stop learning.”

If only I had known: “The importance of taking the time to network in college and grow your connections.”

Tim Barnhart ’02

Communication Studies/
Business Administration

Managing Director,
Northwestern Mutual Life

Baldwinsville, N.Y.

Best career advice: “Have the opportunity to decline the opportunity. If you’re not prepared for an opportunity and an opportunity arises, then it’s too late. Said differently, always be in the position to succeed, and be able to say, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’”

If only I had known: “Know what you want your life to look like and then make decisions in alignment with that vision. And don’t give up until you get it.”

Sheneya Wilson ’15 M’16

Accounting, MBA

Assurance Associate, PriceWaterhouseCoopers

New York City

Best career advice: “Always do more than your current position.”

If only I had known: “How important it is choose a career that is going to lead you into being able to do what you love for the rest of your life.”

Andy Miller ’92

Economics

Senior Vice President of Innovation and Product Development, AARP

Boston/Washington, D.C.

Best career advice: “Never stop challenging the status quo … always be curious.”

If only I had known: “Every ‘no’ you hear means you are that much closer to ‘yes.’

Wei Wang M’15

Human Computer Interaction

Data Analyst, New York Life
Insurance Company

Union City, N.J.

Best career advice: “‘Be both resilient and flexible at work.’ –Lori Newman Cohen ’79 Things don’t always go in the direction you wish. One has to be flexible enough to adapt to changes. It’s important to have your own vision and be resilient when facing challenges.”

If only I had known: “It is very important to go out and meet people who you can relate to. There are many people out there willing to help you. But opportunities will not come until you open yourself to others. Don’t be shy!”

Jason Guild ’03 M’08

Secondary Education Earth Science, Master’s in Education

Science Teacher, Oswego High School

Oswego, N.Y.

Best career advice: “Work hard and try to impress when you student teach. That eventually helped me land my current job.”

If only I had known: “Having a relationship with the students was often more important than the lesson itself. If you show students respect, they generally give you more respect in return and that leads to a better classroom environment.”

Cydni Williams ’13

Art, Graphic Design Concentration; Marketing

Channel Marketing Manager, Facebook

Newark, Calif.

Best career advice: “‘Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard’ is a quote by Tim Notke that motivates me. It is a great reminder that working hard and constantly learning can level the playing field so success should be attainable through hard work and grit.”

If only I had known: “I wish I’d more solidly identified ‘what I do well’ earlier so I could have strengthened it.”

Jacob Tanner ’12

Business Administration

Co-Founder, Digital Hyve

Syracuse, N.Y.

Best career advice: “I would say that many times I was told to go with my gut instinct, and, so far, that has rarely failed me.”

If only I had known: “I wish I had known more about being a better leader … I learned about great leaders and noticed I was hindering the growth of the company by not empowering and challenging others more.”

Amy Hueber ’77

Biology

Scientist, Environmental Hazard Assessment, SRC Inc.

Camillus, N.Y.

Best career advice: “If you see something that needs to be done, then do it. The unspoken advice we got was to aspire to be a person who makes a difference.”

If only I had known: “I probably should have taken more organic chemistry as an undergraduate.”

Joan Cear ’80

Communication, Broadcasting Concentration

Senior Vice President, Kellen Communications

New York City

Best career advice: “Trust your gut.”

If only I had known: “I wish that I knew about professional networking. I didn’t understand what it meant or how to do it … it’s important for students and professionals to understand that networking is not about what the other individual can do for you – it’s about connecting and finding ways to help each other.”

Jeff Knauss ’07

Public Relations, Marketing Concentration

Co-Founder of Digital Hyve

Syracuse, N.Y.

Best career advice: “There is no shortcut around hard work if your goal is to be a success. Work smarter and harder than everyone else, and you’ll win.”

If only I had known: “I don’t think of many things in hindsight because I don’t think it’s very productive. I have made plenty of mistakes and had bumps along the road in my career, but every mistake is a lesson, so I’m glad for all the bumps.”

Best career advice: “Join the local and state level associations (CNYTEEA, NYSTEEA), as you cannot survive by yourself and you need to network with other teachers across the state. And take leadership roles within the organization and attend conferences. That advice really did provide me with the strong network that has helped my teaching tremendously.”

If only I had known: “I wish I took the electricity/electronics courses that were offered at Oswego.”

Sarah Miller ’15 (no relation to Andy)

Business Administration/Public Relations

Innovation Associate, AARP

Washington, D.C.

Best career advice: “Figure it out. This lesson would set me apart from many of my peers. It taught me the importance of being a resourceful problem solver. Managers want people they can trust to solve problems. In my opinion, this is a skill set that is non-negotiable when entering the workforce.”

Gary Morris ’88

Communication Studies/Psychology

Director of Career Services, SUNY Oswego

Oswego

Best career advice: “Finding the best career is like going through a buffet line. Try a little bit of everything first; you’ll recognize a delicious dish when you taste it.”

If only I had known: “how much fun it would be to have a career helping young people make their dreams come true. I would have jumped into Career Services years earlier.”

Jeff Storch ’05 M’06

Accounting, Economics Minor, MBA

Senior Tax Manager, Deloitte Tax LLP

San Diego, Calif.

Best career advice: “Career Services said that you will get a bunch of ‘no’s when you make the cold calls, but just keep trying because you just need one ‘yes.’”

If only I had known: “I had a lot of great coaching while going through Oswego and into the recruiting season. I would say to just remember to take recruiting slowly because it will go by so fast.”

Top five interviewing tips:

Dress for success.

Prepare ahead of time; do homework on industry, organization and position.

Write a thank-you note—and market yourself again.

Practice interviewing.

(You talk during an interview, not think. That would be like practicing tennis by imagining it on the couch.)

Be prepared for phone, group and dining interviews.

Top five career planning tips:

Complete some self-assessment inventories to get a better sense of your interests, strengths, values, etc.

Get experience in those areas that most interest you; volunteering counts!

Join related professional associations, network with alumni and ask lots of questions.

Conduct informational interviews to get a sense of a variety of career paths.

Research careers through a variety of online resources.

Top five resume tips:

Connect your past and present to the future skills and experiences required.